Eight things

to keep you going, today and through the week

Mar 02, 2025

If weeks start on Sunday ours started with watching what Magic Johnson called “the best women’s college basketball game this season.” Two ranked teams (#13 NC State vs. #1 Notre Dame) battling it out in front of seven WNBA scouts and a packed-to-the-rafters Reynolds Stadium, on national television, made for an electric atmosphere. But what the effusive coverage of a truly amazing game couldn’t capture? Right as the game went into overtime, a chaotic scene unfolded in our regular section. “We need a doctor!” people three rows down from us shouted. Two medical professionals from our row rushed to the man’s side, stretched him on the cement floor, and began chest compressions. “Stop the game!” our whole section called, waving our arms. At first no one could hear us because the stadium was so raucous, riveted by the tense, high-scoring game. It seemed to take a long time for all of Reynolds to understand what was happening—by then the girls and I had left the section to be out of the way—but eventually, the man was resuscitated, treated by medics, and taken to a hospital, where it was later reported that he recovered. The Wolfpack Women won the game in double overtime—104 to 95—and we went to H Mart after, a little stunned but very appreciative of the Good Samaritans who sit in section 205.

The rest of the week? It has unfolded sort of like that, stunning and disorienting and noodle-requiring. Up is down, hot is cold, sweet is sour. All we know is that we still have to take care of ourselves and our neighbors, and find ways to fight for our democracy.

Here are a few things we recommend:

First, Art Party at Clapping Hands Farm is a Saturday 10-2 spring program for kids aged 2-8 and their grownups. A great way to learn and practice new art forms and games, appreciate your creative neighbors and the outdoors, and spend needed time away from screens and news. Bea is a junior counselor this spring, and Harriet and I will be campers on at least a couple of weekends. Triangle friends, sign up here!

The whole family loved Flow, a wordless Latvian film nominated for best animated feature. You can see it now at the Chelsea Theater or stream it on Max. The eerie, beautiful film is about a black cat who bands together with an unlikely group of animals—a capybara, a large seabird, a lemur, and a dog—to survive a catastrophic flood. We yelled, cried, and laughed. “It was very emotional,” Harriet said.

Bea is enjoying The Week Junior, a news and culture magazine her Nana and Grandpa subscribed her to, and where she first read about Flow.

Bea also recommends The Lost Year by Katherina Marsh. “It’s about the Holodomor, a horrific Ukranian famine created by Stalin and covered up for many years by the Soviet Union. It’s told from three perspectives of thirteen-year-old kids: Matthew, a boy struggling to deal with the 2020 pandemic at home. He’s going through his great-grandmother’s boxes when he finds her journals and discovers that she lived through the Holodomor and begins to investigate. There’s also a girl named Mila, living in Ukraine in 1933, when her starving cousin Nadia shows up at her door one day, and she begins to realize that everything she believed about her country was not true. The other perspective is from Helen, Mila’s other cousin, living in the U.S. at the same time—she finds a letter sent by Nadia’s starving family and after investigating, she teams up with a friend to tell the stories of people living in Ukraine and their relatives to prove that the reports of the famine in Ukraine are not just ‘scare stories.’ It was very detailed, and there were so many plot twists. I loved it, and the fact that it was based on a true story made it even more emotional.” (Note from Belle: this book is a good entrance point for talking with kids about famine, genocide, and the dangers of denying history and reality.)

Harriet and I loved Megabat, the first in a chapter book series by Anna Humphrey—not realistic, but very sweet and fun (and which we discovered at McIntyre’s.) Harriet says, “It’s about a fruit bat found in the attic by a boy named Daniel. Megabat talks very weird, has big eyes, and is super cute. He thinks he’s from this place called Papaya Premium but he’s actually from Borneo. Daniel and his friend have to try to help him find home.”

We also loved Meena’s Saturday by Kusum Mepani, a library find. According to Harriet, “it’s about a girl who has a very large family from India. I like how it’s really kind, and everybody’s working together, and all the family comes together to make a feast. It made me hungry, but I was glad that Meena took her place at the table instead of accepting that boys eat first.”

I love this post and song, “Last Ditch Ultimatum,” by our friend Tift Merritt. I first heard the song last year and could not stop thinking about it.