I Saw That!!! The First Three Months of Blogging

This is your chance to visit, or revisit, the Ahno's choicest moments from her blog, "I Saw That!!!" which is featured on the Virginian Pilot web site. We welcome you to peruse the archive below.

January:

Evil Gringos Strike Again...Yawn. 01/29/2007
The Groundhog Menace 01/29/2007
Don't Show Me The Newspaper 01/28/2007
Scroungy-Lookin’ Mutts 01/28/2007
Five More Days! Tool Up Now! 01/28/2007
So You Want To Be A Veterinarian? 01/28/2007
Quit That!!! 01/27/2007
My New Scanner 01/26/2007
Khom Loi Lanterns 01/26/2007
Green, Green Grass Of Home 01/26/2007
Hillary, Get A Chihuahua! 01/25/2007
Paybacks, PETA 01/25/2007
The Neuter Scooter 01/24/2007
Fleas 01/24/2007
Plan B, Please. 01/24/2007
An SOU Address We Won’t Hear 01/23/2007
Trash 01/23/2007
Visual Sominex 01/22/2007
The Willing Widget 01/22/2007
Pay That Judge! 01/22/2007
Hurray For The Balding "Ballerinos" 01/22/2007
The “Fat Fairy”’s Wand? 01/21/2007
An "Inhuman" Candidate 01/21/2007
Go To Jail? 01/21/2007
Smash And Run 01/20/2007
Christian Muslims 01/20/2007
At The Corner Store 01/19/2007
Red, White, And Blue Springtime 01/19/2007
Car Archaeology 01/19/2007
Could It Happen Here? 01/19/2007
"Sisters!" 01/19/2007
Nothing Happened 01/18/2007
Skills 01/18/2007
Yay For Quantity! 01/18/2007
I’ve Got To Start Paying Attention 01/17/2007
What's Cuter Than A Chihuahua? 01/17/2007
Where Would I Draw The Line? 01/17/2007
Secret Songs 01/17/2007
Chillin'.... Globally. 01/17/2007
Looking For A Brass Lamp 01/16/2007
Nascar Not Spoken Here 01/16/2007
TV, The Ahno Report 01/16/2007
Home Made Winter Sports Equipment 01/16/2007
Without The Cheese 01/15/2007
The Speech 01/14/2007
You Can 01/14/2007
Beginning. Again. 01/14/2007
Education, It's Not Just For Dogs 01/13/2007
$$$ Confusion 01/13/2007
Insane, Superstitious Apologies 01/13/2007
Support The Troops? 01/12/2007
Happy Birthday 01/12/2007
Hello, Walmart, Surprise Me. 01/12/2007
Blogosaurus Rex 01/12/2007
Secret Garbage Guy 01/11/2007
Recall Riddick? 01/11/2007
No Exotic Pets 01/11/2007
Winner: The Covetted Rude Librarian Award! 01/10/2007
Stoner Dogs? 01/10/2007
Bang! Boom! Yawn. 01/10/2007
"Catholics Gone Wild?" 01/09/2007
No Arthur For Me 01/09/2007
Cuttin' Hair In The Piano Bar 01/09/2007
A Different Experience 01/08/2007
Crying On The Escalator 01/08/2007
How To Become A Bestselling Novelist 01/08/2007
Ooooh, Drool. Seed Catalog. Yes, My Master. 01/07/2007
Class 01/07/2007
Little Baghdad 01/07/2007
Nesting Birds 01/07/2007
Excuse Me While I Rant And Rave A Bit 01/06/2007
How Many Chihuahuas Is Too Many? 01/06/2007
About That Old Bomb Shelter In The Basement… 01/06/2007
Keeping An Eye On Grandma 01/05/2007
Haircuts 01/05/2007
Awful Things About Being Homeless 01/04/2007
All I Wanted For Christmas Was A New Garbage Can, But That Was Too Much To Ask. 01/04/2007
Another Kaboom 01/03/2007
In A Position To Criticize? 01/02/2007
Yeehaw. 2007. 01/02/2007
Between His Ears 01/02/2007
I Resolve To… 01/01/2007

December:

The South. It Is What It Is. 12/31/2006
A Vision In Vestments 12/31/2006
A Resume Is Only As Good As The Person Behind It. 12/30/2006
“Inasmuch as you have done it unto the least of these…” 12/30/2006
Unbelievable! 12/29/2006
Bursting Into Life/ Preparing To Die 12/29/2006
Whoopeeeeee! 12/28/2006
Happy Birthday, Me 12/28/2006
Anger For Christmas 12/27/2006
Too Much Self-control 12/27/2006
A Tradition Is Whatever You Do At Least Twice 12/26/2006
They’re Thinking 12/26/2006
The Racket On The Roof 12/25/2006
Christmas Eve, Already 12/24/2006
Icicles On My Eyelashes 12/24/2006
A New Digital Camera 12/23/2006
Unhallowed History 12/23/2006
Rain On The Decorations 12/22/2006
Music Overhead 12/22/2006
A New And Far Lovelier Chihuahua 12/22/2006
An Invitation 12/21/2006
At Last 12/21/2006
Exit, Stage Left 12/20/2006
Yay For El Nino! 12/20/2006
George Washington Would Be Surprised 12/19/2006
The Homeowner's Association Would Like To Thank You For...
12/19/2006
Culture War 12/19/2006
Buy a friend an expensively ripped-up jacket.... 12/19/2006
Keeping The Homeland Safe From Methane 12/16/2006
The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread 12/16/2006
Florida….UGH! 12/15/2006
Hello, Big Brother 12/15/2006
Whoopee, Let’s Sacrifice A Camel 12/14/2006
Feel Free To Be Bad 12/14/2006
Baffled Rage 12/14/2006
Sad 12/14/2006
Nearly Got Killed 12/13/2006
A Really Good Thank You 12/13/2006
The Dreaded Snake In The Toilet…Or All Over The House 12/13/2006
Hitting Ebeneezer Scrooge In His Wallet 12/12/2006
Don’t Tell Santa, But Porque Choppe’s Naughty 12/12/2006
Have Yourself A Merry Little Busted Car Window 12/12/2006
Evil Cows? 12/11/2006
A Gem 12/10/2006
Oh, Go Ahead! 12/10/2006
Don’t Be A Jerk; Go To Work 12/09/2006
Oh, Christmas Tree 12/09/2006
Where’s My Santa Hat? 12/08/2006
Creative Sentencing 12/08/2006
Police, hurry up. Crazy people, shut up. Dog and cat, behave. 12/08/2006
I’m Rich! 12/07/2006
Porque Choppe Versus Hoity…Chapter 1 12/07/2006
Did You Put Up The Lights Yet? 12/06/2006
I admit it. Today I'm cold. 12/06/2006
A Gas Fireplace Never Quits In July 12/06/2006
Christmas Anxiety 12/05/2006
Wrotten Wreath 12/05/2006
My Not-Getting-A-Ticket Rap 12/04/2006
Be Embarrassed. Be Very Ashamed. 12/04/2006
Holiday Funeral 12/04/2006
More Craziness 12/03/2006
The Supreme Court Must Have Run Out Of Something To Do 12/03/2006
People Who Still Smoke 12/02/2006
Welcome, Pests 12/02/2006
Don’t Stop The War On Drugs….Yet 12/02/2006
Felicitations 12/01/2006
Spoiled Child? Probably Not. 12/01/2006

November:

"Go home, Junior! Go now!" 11/30/2006
Life In The Slow Lane 11/30/2006
Teacher’s Christmas Gift 11/30/2006
Boring The Dog 11/29/2006
Knocking Over A Fast Food Joint. 11/28/2006
Backlash Served Here 11/28/2006
“Deck the tub with bow-wow bubbles, falalalalalalalala.” 11/27/2006
The Chihuahua Beat Down 11/27/2006
Moloch, 6; Civilization, 0 11/26/2006
No Can Do 11/26/2006
Selling Cheap 11/26/2006
Watch Your Mouth 11/25/2006
Choose a Chihuahua 11/25/2006
Read The Whole Recipe 11/24/2006
The Day After The Day Before 11/24/2006
Not At The Table This Year 11/23/2006
The Year We Hosted Thanksgiving Dinner 11/23/2006
Treating People Like Rats 11/22/2006
Chihuahuasaurus Rex 11/21/2006
No Thanks 11/21/2006
Bring On The Festivity 11/21/2006
Don’t Be A Cannibal. That’s Bad. 11/20/2006
What!!!?! Bring Back The Draft? 11/20/2006
He's Done 11/20/2006
Our Taxes At Work…Somewhere. 11/20/2006
You May Have My Share Of The Prunes 11/19/2006
Re. November 23 11/19/2006
No Burqas In Public 11/19/2006
Off The Leash, Here 11/19/2006
It’s My Business When… 11/18/2006
Two things To Be Said For Using Your Head 11/17/2006
At The Mall 11/17/2006
Shut The Door; It’s Only A Wino? 11/17/2006
Not Yet Farming The Street 11/17/2006
Like A Chicken With Its Head Chopped Off 11/16/2006
Flowers In WInter 11/16/2006
Time To Go Out And Shoot Bambi 11/16/2006
Ahno Economic Theory 11/16/2006
I Went To War On Election Day 11/15/2006
Finally, I Can Say Something Good About Fox News 11/15/2006
No Home Movies! 11/15/2006
Something Peculiar This Way Comes 11/14/2006
Naysayers 11/14/2006
Boo-Hoo 11/14/2006
She Looked A Gift Pig Head In The Mouth 11/14/2006
Want This Channel? Ask Your Pets. 11/14/2006
Hey! Be Careful With The Duct Tape! 11/13/2006
Fine, Fine, Be Like That 11/13/2006
Apply Now, Or Maybe Not 11/12/2006
Serves You Right 11/12/2006
The Winner Is... 11/11/2006
Stops On The Tour 11/11/2006
Play Date 11/10/2006
New People 11/10/2006
How Did She Do That? 11/10/2006
Celebration Underway 11/09/2006
Doo Tell 11/09/2006
High Class Help 11/09/2006
Talkin' Turkey 11/08/2006
High Blood Pressure Alert 11/07/2006
Watchers 11/07/2006
You've Got To Fire That Friend 11/06/2006
Singing Lessons 11/06/2006
Egg No Rant 11/06/2006
You Know You Want To 11/06/2006
You, Too, Can Be Big Brother 11/05/2006
Shake Those Pompoms 11/05/2006
Into The Dark 11/04/2006
Don't Take Pleasure In The Troubles Of Your Enemy 11/04/2006
YAY! It's cleaning lady day! 11/03/2006
Let me Put In A Good Word For Procrastination 11/02/2006
Beating The Man Down Over The Issues 11/02/2006
Heartworm Medicine 11/02/2006
Disappointing 11/02/2006
Blogicide Here 11/01/2006

October:

Fixing Porque Choppe 10/31/2006
Red Hot Halloween Fever 10/31/2006
Paper And Pencil Election 10/30/2006
When To Skip Halloween 10/29/2006
Listen While I Bark About The Dog Park 10/29/2006
Courting The Dog Vote 10/28/2006
Choose A Better Target 10/28/2006
TIgers Just About Out Of Magic 10/27/2006
Literature Next To The Canned Soup 10/26/2006
Choosing A Costume 10/26/2006
Ripe and Juicy 10/25/2006
Plastic Politicians 10/25/2006
Growling At Politicians 10/24/2006
Speak To Me With Your Decorations 10/23/2006
Playdate With A Chihuahua 10/23/2006
That's not sewage, sir 10/22/2006
Please, Talk About Religion Or Politics 10/22/2006
A lady and her dog... 10/21/2006

Listen!

Run, don’t walk, your fingers over the keyboard to click on this link. It takes you to Joanna Newson singing “The Sprout and The Bean”. Something horribly, charmingly, weirdly loveable and tuneful about this performance.

Good One

Yesterday we went to see "Flushed Away". If you're at the mall shopping and need a sit-down break, this is good. Not great, but good. I enjoyed it and Benny and Sadie sat through the whole thing.

Thanks so much to those who keep clicking the link to my blog at HamptonRoads.com, the local newspaper. I'm trying to beat down a blogger who only posts about once every two months but still gets a zillion hits because his blog is about electronic games, a popular subject.

Slowly and surely with your help I defeated the blog which is a celebration of alcohol, the one called Bar Stories. That was a great effort. Love y'all. Keep on clicking. Now on target: the nonblogging games blogger. "Click at will, Mr. Sulu!"
Link in the post below.

HELP!

I have a request of all you people kind enough to read this blog. Please go to my blog at the newspaper and check it out. I've just been doing it for a week and a half. The site stats come out soon and it's going to hurt my feelings to have a way low number of page views as compared with people who have blogged there for a while. All any of the bloggers will see is the numbers. Nowhere does it say, "Joanna's low numbers are because she has just a few days here as compared with everyone else's tenure in office." So please help me out by going to that site. Click on it a few times/day for a little while. You don't even need to read it. Click and run.

Here's the link.

On the list of blogs, click on "I SAW THAT".

Thanks.

More, etc.

I started another blog, one under the auspices of the local newspaper, The Virginian-Pilot. Check out the truly splendid faux toe of Porque Choppe at the top.

The Clean, Lavender-Scented Domicile

This was Leona's day to clean my house. She no longer employs the person assisting her last time. Today she showed up with three new helpers. She brought two of them indoors, took them over the house, top to bottom, instructing them what to do and what not to do. Carried in several buckets of cleaning implements and products. Then she and a third new assistant left for another house up the street. She whispered to me, "Please keep an eye on them. They're new." Hm.

I had things to do so I pretty much ignored them since I could hear them working upstairs, the vacuum going, etc. I tied little Porque on the porch since one lady claimed to be afraid of dogs; she'd been bitten.

After a while I took all my bedding out of the dryer where it was finally done. I carried it upstairs and left it on the bed, went back downstairs.

Mostly I worked on origami bats. I'm making white origami bats with red sequin eyes. Depending how a bat is folded, it can stand up, stand upside down, be in horizontal flying position. I was busy making decorations for the dinner here on Sunday evening.

After a few hours the ladies seemed to be nearly done. The one woman asked me where I go to church and when I told her I'm Episcopalian, she told me very sternly that I should obey the Bible where we are instructed to, "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord." She added that she knows of scripture references which obligate us to dance before the Lord, too. She asked, suspiciously, "What do Episcopalians believe?"

I told her that Episcopalians believe pretty much what all other Christians believe, that our main difference is that we like a liturgical service, nice and quiet and restful.

Whacking the dust rag around wrathfully, she told me that this is not good enough. I need to put some energy into my worship or it isn't right. I told her that once I tried to visit a church with a three-hour service, plenty of noise and dancing, and it took me a week to recover. I've got to stick to the more soothing, quiet type of service. She shook her head admonishingly. Clearly, she thought I was about to go to hell because I attend a church where it's too darn quiet. She gave me a hard look and told me that her brother is pastor of a store-front church a few blocks away where people know how to do things right. She repeated the name of the church and added, encouragingly, that it's across from the hardware store. She thought of another good point, "It don' us'ally run mo'den' two oh free owuh." I replied, "Way too long for me." She looked disgusted.

After a while the hubub died down. The vacuum quieted. The ladies dragged all their stuff out onto the porch, then came back in looking uncertain. I thought they were waiting for Leona to come back and critique their work, so I told them to sit down and be comfortable...and I got diet Cokes for them.

Sitting there, both ladies told me horror stories about their physical and family problems. One woman has had so much surgery that she's a regular Frankenstein. More interestingly, she's lost 40 pounds and is still losing...and looks like she should continue along those lines for about another 100 pounds. The other lady told about awful trouble with rheumatism, broken bones that didn't heal right, pain and agony with each step she takes. Yeesh! I began to feel like Simon Legree, causing these folks to work and hurt themselves.

Finally, they stood up and left, telling me that Leona would return to get her cleaning supplies, but they had to get to their homes.

They were gone. The quiet was nice. The house looked good.

Shortly Leona came back. She looked around and blew up, "I knew it! Those two! Look at this floor!!! Look at the baseboards!!" Her helper ran upstairs and yelled, "They didn't make this bed!" The helper did that and some other things upstairs while Leona redid quite a bit of the other work downstairs. I paid Leona and she and her helper went home. That lady has a hard life. She works like few other people I've met.

Anyway, when everyone was really gone, I put pasta in the microwave, set a lavender-scented candle in the sink after running some water. I ate the pasta. The candle soon scented the entire house. Every surface gleams. It's all good. Ahhhhhhhh. I like cleaning-lady day.

Hold The Videos

This morning for several reasons I watched videos which show the president making a fool of himself. At first I wondered if these were modified electronically to make Mr. Bush look really bad. For instance, there were three in which clearly he was drunk at press conferences. There were two where he was picking his nose almost up to his elbow. In a number of videos he did verbal bloopers. After a while it occurred to me that these videos span quite a bit of time. Then something else...I reflected that anyone caught on film as much as this man will surely be at a disadvantage from time to time. Finally, I found myself thinking that he's kind of a likeable guy, no pretense, none of that pompous ass stuff one finds so thick on the ground in the presence of politicians. He may be a corn pone, a drinker, a nose picker, a person who gets his tongue tangled, but he does laugh at himself. I had to quit watching in case what I saw influenced me to stop scorning the man.

The theme of each video was that President Bush is mentally defective. Hm...maybe so, but he's more likeable than John Kerry. God, please, don't let the Democrats pick another undead candidate like that. Such people may be worthy, they may be intelligent, they may not embarass us in public, but I don't like them. So, in the interest of electing Democrats next time, I hope these videographers give it up, stop, let it go. The thing is that even when he's being a dope, President Bush, in all these videos, comes across as a human being, not as a detestable blowhard. Watching him I got an Alfred E. Neumann-went-to-Washington kind of feeling, but it wasn't entirely a bad thing.

Kazakhstan, cont.

Searching for info re. Kazakhstan, I ran across a blog by a fellow who has spent ten years working in Kazakhstan through a United Nations subdivision. He recorded several English-speaking people telling their experiences. Most made an effort to be PC. Two did not.

BREAD...One of those said that to the non-urban Kazakh, bread is almost a sacred substance due to the rarity of non-meat foods. There is no such thing as wasting even a scrap of bread, should one be lucky enough to get some. Living in the city, Almaty, she did have access to bread and each morning after breakfast, she fed bread crumbs to the birds outside her door in the street. Neighbors remonstrated with her earnestly that this showed disrespect for the struggles of Kazakh people some of whom never even get to taste bread. She ignored the rhetoric and continued to feed crumbs to the birds until one day when a peculiar chain of circumstances began with her strewing crumbs and ended with her going to a doctor to have her wrist stitched where she'd sustained a serious cut. The neighbors assured her that this turn of events was a judgement on her for wasting bread.

T P...Another speaker told of the shortage of toilet paper and warned that visitors to Kazakhstan should bring with them all the toilet paper they might need during their entire trip. On the one hand, they could possibly encounter a bit of TP, but likely not. In restaurants/hotels, none is in the bathrooms. When you want some, you must call down to the desk which might send up one small sheet off the roll, if they admit to having any at all. Most Kazakhs live out and about on the steppes, mobile with their herds. They have no indoor plumbing. For city people, the quest for toilet paper usually begins and ends with newspaper/pages of magazines and a waste paper can beside the toilet. Can't flush newspaper. Travelers to Kazakhstan are urged to bring with them a product called Urinelle, a funnel-like thing a woman can use to more easily access the hole-in-the-floor type of toilet common there. With this type of toilet, there may be no way to insert paper of any kind into the toilet, so, once again, travelers are encouraged to bring little one-sheet wipes to use as potty paper and then to carry away with them. How do you carry around used "toilet paper"? Well, travelers are instructed to bring lots and lots of zip lock plastic bags to use in keeping TP until there's an opportunity to dispose of it. What do natives use? No mention anywhere.

Make Do

The Borat movie opens in about a week. Suddenly information about Kazakhstan abounds in the media. For people like me who consider the movie a spoof, this recent flood of info comes as a shock. Except in bigger cities, Kazakh food seems uniquely, horribly different. Kazakh natives eat mostly meat and they prefer portions which in the USA would never even make it into the grocery store. For example the head of a sheep, especially the brain. Another appreciated item; fried camel offal. Huh? Offal? Here you go: offal is the viscera and trimmings of a butchered animal often considered inedible by humans. We're talking ears, noses, guts, genitals, organs, eyeballs, etc. Fried camel offal. Well, now. Here, for example, is a camel kidney looking like, like, like...a camel kidney.

These people eat the animals they have, which are horses, camels and sheep. They eat dairy products derived from horse, sheep, and camel milk. Without refrigeration anywhere along the way. And they sluice down their meals with vodka, which, the more you think about it, makes perfect sense. Women, the offal of the human race in that part of the world, drink tea, must face mealtime stone sober. Sentenced to a stretch in Kazakhstan, I, certainly, would lose weight. An Asian nation as one big spa, you might say.

On the one hand, it's admirable that Kazakhs do not sit around pining for fruit and vegetables, but make do with what they have...which is meat. On the other hand, oy.

Precautionary Principle

The stuff still sitting on my porch after six uninterrupted weeks is there owing to my deference toward the precautionary principle. What it is, a person's got to question, "If I carry that laundry stuff we used at the beach back into my home laundry, what might be the result?" According to the precautionary principle, if there is no evidence to support the notion that something is harmless, then we should assume that the product is harmful. I could only know that lavender-scented laundry products would not trigger migraine in the neighbors if I went door to door and asked questions. Not having done this, I shouldn't just go ahead and swamp the neighborhood in lavender smell out the dryer vent. The precautionary principle applies the reverse of innocent until proven guilty to products, policies, and behaviors.

OK. I lied. That stuff is just on the porch because I don't want to carry it in. The box will probably still be there on the porch when I drop dead at some future time. I just wanted to use the words 'precautionary principle' in a few sentences. I finished reading Michael Crichton's book State of Fear a few minutes ago and he really does not like the 'precautionary principle', a concept I'd never heard of until reading this book. I've got to find a way to introduce those words in conversation soon. "The fact that you've made a practice of pottying your dog in my yard leads me to believe that you've applied the precautionary principle to the notion that allowing your dog to potty in your own yard will not result in your children picking up dog parasites through their bare feet." Something like that.