Lisa leaning on Sugar Baby.

The new year 2015 had brought neither rain nor snow, with one advantage — it was easier to visit the ponies. Around this time I had misspoken, wanting to offer Lisa to go see the horses, but before I finished saying it, my mind had come up with perhaps a better word, ponies — and thus I said porsies. Since then porsies became a well established expression around our home.
Tom usually isn't thrilled to join us, and now during the short winter days, I don't make him; even so I am quite busy. It gives me opportunity to be and chat with Lisa alone. I learn interesting things. The smaller pony, Sugar Baby, is completely white — and very skittish. He used to work as a kids' party pony, being led around and around, i.e. he's used to a saddle and people, but knows practically nothing of actual riding. Apparently he made some ugly experience, and is afraid of raised voices, whips, everything. Still Lisa favors this anxious little pony and asks to ride him.

We participated in a geocaching bout with a bunch of friends around the horse stables.

I had a bit of doubts how she would cope, but soon Lisa dispelled my worries. Baby tends to turn his back so that he keeps facing a person (an any other threat), which is rather impractical if you are trying to mount him, and dangerous for a crowd of admiring little girls. When Baby demonstrated this to Lisa, she asked me to let her deal with it — and began to talk to the porse, petting his neck and slowly moving onto his back. Baby stood still, not moving away. I thought that this would be the moment Lisa uses to jump on him, but she did not. She laid both arms over the saddle and leaned heavily. Last time I saw this trick done, it was Gary the horse whisperer, but I'm sure Lisa was not present back then. Whether it works through the rider first showing to the horse how his weight is applied, and the horse concludes that it's not dangerous, or whether there's some other logic, I don't know. Nevertheless, it works for Lisa and Baby. I asked her where she had seen it, and she gazed at me uncomprehending. It's obvious, when Baby is so skittish, one must do it that way, is it not?

Baby wears no bit, only a halter with reins, and our control mechanisms are somewhat limited. This has been another source of my worries — especially with an anxious pony, who is able to buck at any little thing. Lisa said she was not afraid at all. She would notice when Baby prepares to jump by how he crouches his hinds, and she would have enough time to get ready. Not that this would be any kind of new discovery, but I'm fascinated how Lisa found out by herself.

A gull on our favorite Davenport Landing beach has caught a mean crab.

Yet at this point it became obvious that I did not have much more to teach Lisa, and that it was her who could teach me about horses — things that I learn from trainers and cowboys come to Lisa naturally — we might need somebody more qualified. I wondered how to arrange it, and perhaps only my advanced age excuses that I did not think of the simplest solution — to approach Sue, who sometimes coaches me with Foxy. Sue said that she was OK training ponies, having one herself at home, and if there was a need to teach Lisa something that Baby did not know, it was no problem either. I asked the porsies' owner, who rejoiced what a great idea it was, and now Sue coaches all of us — mothers and children alike. We hope that the ponies, being under consistent care of a single trainer, lose some of their confusion, and subsequently become less fussy or dangerous.

Lisa has learned to deal with the anxious little horse.

But of course we have other activities than porsies — if only because that our males don't care as much for the animals. Yet to find a Sunday afternoon program for a family including two children on the precipice of puberty is rather an artistic feat. I wanted to get OUT somewhere, in the open air. Hippo felt the same way, after a week in an office, but we reckoned that our chances of succeeding with a hike were rather slim. Eventually we thought, after lots of pondering, of the USS Hornet, which Hippo and the kids had visited two years ago — but I had not. Happy, how great idea it was, I urged Lisa to dress up in the morning, telling her we were headed for an aircraft carrier and it would likely be chilly out there. Her response? Gee, I thought we would be doing something INTERESTING; I guess I'll be bored all day again.

I must congratulate myself to keeping a very high level of self control, for I did not shred her into a thousand little Lizzies right on the spot; instead, I considered the following option: leaving her at home, and to prevent her from being BORED, and to give her something to do, I would toss her stuff out of her room. I subsequently reject such plan as momentarily unrealistic — after all, we were planning an all day trip, and Lisa is only nine. But dear Lisa, you can look forward to it, for I'm just going to keep the idea in my back pocket (and with your attitude I don't have a doubt it will get used).

USS Hornet is anchored at Alameda Island.

And so Lisa only got talked to and ordered to next time come up with her own idea. Explaining her alternatives to her (all of them included cleaning up her room) probably frightened her, hence she kept exhibiting moderate enthusiasm for the rest of the trip. Perhaps it had something to do with a lunch at her favorite restaurant, which we used to kick the day off.

You can watch San Francisco skyline from the aft edge of the flight deck.

The USS Horned is anchored at Alameda Island, on the other side of the Bay; it was launched in 1943, participated in World War II, Vietnam War — and the landing on the Moon. It was decommissioned from active duty in 1970. More history here. What impressed me perhaps the most, was how large the ship appears from the outside, and how cramped the inner space is. About twenty people joined our tour, and some part of us were always trailing behind in some corridors — I don't understand how they could fit three and half thousand crewmates in, and how they managed to not keep running into each other in the narrow passages. The likely largest room, the mess hall, could accommodate up to a hundred people, which means that the whole crew had to cycle thirty five times with every meal. In practice it meant no leisurely coffees or smokes and chit-chat — grab a tray and stuff yourself within ten minutes. On the other hand, from historic menus it would seem that the food had been excellent. Our docent explained that the navy thus made up for all hardships of life on the seas. There even was a sweets shop, serving ice cream. At least some cooling off, when the showers looked like this: there was a line of men, the next one had fifteen seconds to get wet, step out of the shower, file in at the end of the line, applying soap while waiting, and when his turn came up, he had forty seconds to wash off. Freshwater was made mostly for turbines running the propulsion, then for washing airplanes, drinking — in this order — and only the rest was used for luxury such as showering.

I have to say that I would probably suffer greatly, living on a warship like this. Minimalist rooms (claustrophobia), heavily intersected by fire-proof bulkheads, plus cohabitation with several thousand people — I would not have held up, not even with ice cream. And that despite my correct navy height (my five feet eight inches let me pass under all the pipes and cables; note: almost exactly so) — while Hippo acted out his inner Hunchback of Notre Dame during our tour, having to look for nooks and crannies in the complex rooms, where he could straighten up.

Exhibits of aviation history are scattered on the flight and hangar decks.

Tom and Hippo had enjoyed many of the lectures; I admit that Lisa and I had been fading away a bit whilst in the engine room. I would probably not understand the technical details in Czech either. After our tour was over, we got intercepted by an eighty-one year old volunteer, who used to serve on a ship of the same class (Essex), which had been used here for spare parts, when they transformed Horned into a museum. Besides him easily outclimbing me on the ladders, he showed us an officers' bunk — where he sleeps while in service. Naturally, while he served in the navy, he never got anywhere near an officer's cabin, with an actual metal clothes' cabinet and a sink. The toiled was still communal, in the corridor. And no windows, naturally — all the innards of such a warship are protected by up to six layers of steel, and the spaces are used as tanks for "Bunker C" fuel oil, serving to propel the monster. It's simply not for people with claustrophobia like myself.

Kids were allowed to turn valve controls during our lecture in the engine room.

January had prepared a sad ending for us: our hamster had died. Hamsters live for about two years, and he had reached that in August. Around that time he began to see poorly; he had a stroke in October, from which he recovered quite alright, but apparently he lost his sight altogether; when we took him out into an open room, he was disoriented — and would not dash automatically under the nearest couch. Still we think that he fared well — remained quite interested in food, walked up to his water source, and used a sandbox. He kept himself clean, with pelt always fluffy. He rumbled angrily every time I cleaned his cage and threw out his hoarded treasures. He remained friendly, letting us pick him up and pet. During the day on January 29 he still rattled around his home (as he got blind, he apparently stopped distinguishing day and night), carried his grains and a piece of apple to his den, but in the evening his strengths somehow ran out — either he kept falling asleep every few steps, or was losing consciousness; I could not tell. He still let me pick him up and pet, and managed to shuffle up into his bed, although the vertical tube strained him. There he curled up and slept — and I found him in the same position in the morning.

I packed the kids off to school and then went to check on our hamster; he was dead. We dug him a little grave in our back yard in the afternoon. Tom and Lisa naturally cried, but I think that they both understand that Brownie had an actually merciful death, kept self-sufficient till the last moment, and did not suffer. Lisa declared that January 30 she will hold an anniversary memorial for Brownie, and noted it in her calendar. A few days later, the kids mention mostly all the funny things we had with Brownie, and so I think they had been coping rather well. And they beg to get a new hamster, but we shall see about it.