the news people lied to me... how ironic

Sunday, Sept. 02, 2007 | 9:13 PM

so here's my entry about youth group, going to tara's house, and a random visit to a news studio thingy...

tara and i walked in on jordan arranging the chairs in a perfect circle, and tim doing something less memorable than arranging chairs. we sat down, and tim started talking to tara. they asked each other what they'd been doing over the summer. she told him about volunteering at the zoo, learning to play the harp, and getting her wisdom teeth pulled. he told her about ministry, his girlfriend, and trying to learn hebrew and then giving up.

melissa came in and sat down, showing me her finger. she had sliced it open with a razor blade. she told me all about it, but i never said a word back. i am the awkwardness master. or something.

more people came in and sat in the circle, all talking to each other and stuff. eventually jordan got things started. for some reason, they did things different. they didn't start off with a game. they started off with the singing, and then jordan talked for a while... about baptism.

before they started the singing and talking thing, jordan had everyone introduce themselves, because there were some new people. they went around the circle, sharing their name and their favorite sport. i didn't want to speak out across the circle. i grew nervous as my turn came closer and closer. luckily, jordan saved me. when it was my turn, he said, "sarah, do you have anything?"

i sorta looked at him.

"no sport?"

i shook my head.

then he said to the group, "that's sarah... and fluffy, commonly known as bubble."

after the singing and talking thing, the whole group never played a game. some guys just went and threw balls and frisbees and balloons around. as everyone dispersed, tara asked me, "you want to see what's in the kitchen?"

"sure," i said, "i don't want anything, but i'll go with you."

so we got up and walked to the kitchen. tara walked in, and i stayed near the doorway. after walking in a few steps, she turned and looked at me. we started giggling. she walked back to me and quietly asked, "what do i do?" we giggled some more.

melissa asked, "do you want anything?"

"oh, no, i'm fine" tara said.

at this point our giggles grew to laughter. we stood in there another few seconds, and then walked out. it must have all looked pretty odd to the people in the kitchen.

once away from the kitchen, i said, "what do you do? well usually people eat something."

all they'd had was cookies. she answered me, "i've already had a lot of cookies today."

so we sat down there, in the big room that i call "the game playing room." it was before the guys had come in and invaded it. we had it to ourselves. there were random balls strewn about, and i wondered if bubble would chase a ball. tara went and got one, and we sat on either side of the room. she rolled the ball in my direction, and bubble chased it. i rolled it back, and bubble chased it about halfway, until she got distracted by something else. we kept trying to get her to chase it, but she just wanted to randomly run and sniff around. at this point, melissa and dave and others had come and joined us in trying to play with bubble.

when the guys came in and started running around and kicking balls around, i decided to pick bubble up before she got stepped on or something. tara and i went over to the stairs. we entertained ourselves by trying to get bubble to walk up and down the stairs, before we decided to leave.

my dad then drove us over to her house, where i spent the night. the first thing we did was eat some pizza. tara started out cutting the pizza in the usual way, but then for some reason decided to cut it into squares. she cut over her original cuts, which created some little triangles. then she cut a long rectangle. it was very amusing. i was taking a video of it, saying, "there's triangles, squares and rectangles... make a circle!" so she cut a circle in the pizza. it was awesome.

her mom had a fire going outside in their backyard, so next we went out there and made smores. it was dark outside, and i was carrying bubble, my camera, and my smore makings as i walked. i totally did not see the table right in front of me. i walked right into. it was pretty funny.

her mom went back inside, so it was just tara and i as we sat by the fire. we made our smores and just talked for a while. eventually the fire died and we got cold, so we went back inside, where we spent a lot of time playing with bubble.

tara wanted to play topple, but she doesn't have the game. so we attempted to make a makeshift topple game, with a water bottle, a bowl, a pad of construction paper and some dominoes. i know that's probably impossible to imagine, so here's a picture...

after doing that for a while, tara started constructing little domino walls on the construction paper pad. she made a little horse barn. then she went and got the little toy horses and cats that we used to play with, and put little horses in her little horse barn. it brought back memories. i made a pointless video introducing the ones that we could remember the names of.

we played with bubble a bunch more, before deciding to make a bed. then we played chinese checkers a few times before sleeping. i fail at chinese checkers. i tried so hard to win, and i got so close, but i just couldn't do it. not once out of three times.

we had somehow managed to entertain ourselves until about 6 am. i figure i got to sleep around 7 am, and i woke up around 1. we played with bubble for a few hours before getting bored. we decided then to go to the barn. her mom puppysat bubble, while tara and i rode paloma.

it had been a long time since i'd ridden her. on top of that, she just wanted to run. i had a hard time controlling her, so tara put her on a long line, and i went in circles around tara. everytime i tried to trot, she went really fast. since her circles were tight, gravity was pulling me to one side, as well as the saddle. i started slipping. she went faster. i slipped more. she spiraled in tiny circles as tara reeled her in. finally, i fell off.

i started laughing the moment i hit the ground. i didn't really get hurt, because i was already close to the ground before i actually fell. the saddle had slipped so much that it was completely sideways. luckily tara had stopped her just as i fell, so i didn't get trampled. that would have sucked.

i got back on and kept going, and paloma began to settle down. i also started getting back into things. by the time i stopped, tara said that she wasn't doing anything anymore, just holding the line. it was fun. i really need to start riding more.

when we got back to tara's house, i called my dad and went home.

now the following is kinda unrelated, but i wanna get it up here too...

for some reason, a local news station here, katu, invited me to something they called a "blogger meet-up." this is what it said...

Hello fellow bloggers!

Channel 2 is hosting a meet-up of Portland-area bloggers and you're invited!

KATU wants to get to know the blogging community and is interested in joining the conversation. There's no agenda, other than to enjoy some food and beverages courtesy of our hosts. Meet fellow bloggers, view (and photograph!) the television studios and have some fun!

it was very odd and random, however, i liked the part about seeing and photographing the studio. i thought that might be interesting, so i decided to go. my dad came with me.

upon walking into the building, they had us sign in. i had to write down my name, and also the name and address of my blog. they also gave us name tags, so that people who i'd never met before would come up to me and say, "hi sarah."

as we walked toward the room, i was stopped by some official looking guy. he said, "hi sarah," and shook my hand. then he asked me, "what's your blog?"

um...how do i answer that? it's, well it's... my blog. after a moment, i said, "what's my blog?"

"what's it called?"

i wasn't sure how to answer that either. what is it called? i got that "like a fly on the wall" up at the top, but it's not really a name. it's too long to be a name. so i just went with the old name, "ponder that."

he then said to the official looking lady, "she's a ponderer."

yeah. i'm a ponderer.

we walked into this room, sanctioned off by big black curtains. it was full of tall tables with pink tablecloths, but no chairs. all kinds of lights and microphones and a camera hovered over our heads. there was a long table full of food, which my dad and i joined the line to walk down. i didn't get any food.

we then stood at one of the tables in the corner. i looked at all the people that were gathering, hearing bits a pieces of conversations that went on around me. they actually were talking about blogging. i couldn't believe it. how does one carry on a conversation about blogging?

as we stood there, a lady came over and tried to strike up conversation. again i was asked, "so what's your blog?"

i still didn't know how to answer. i was like, "what?"

"what do you blog about?"

"my life."

she said, "that's the best kind," and then went on to talk about how she does some technology blog for her company, and somehow added in that she'd met a guy who was starting up a blog about mustaches... however it's spelled. i couldn't believe conversations like this were going on. people were really just talking about their blogs. it seemed so odd to me. from what i saw and heard, i really think i was the most normal person there.

my dad was getting bored, but i wanted to see the studio. that was the reason i'd went, after all. we went and asked them about it, and they said that when they were off the air, they were going to open up the curtain and let us look around. so we continued waiting.

after they were off the air, some of the news people came in... or whatever you call them. i shook the hand of a guy named steve dunn, and a lady with too much makeup, named debora knapp.

then the official looking lady came and told us that we wouldn't be able to see the studio, because something else was going on. so we left. it was disappointing.

now, after doing some searching, i think she lied to us or something... because look, these other people posted pictures of the studio. that makes me really sad. it's so disappointing. and i'll probably never get another opportunity like that again.

i will forever hate the news.

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