Poem for Monday, Hunger Games, Aquarium

Talk
By Noelle Kocot

My body is
A little
Green sea.

Bears bathe
In it
Then go to

Sleep in the
Basement.
A four-wheeler

Slams past,
And then the
Sea splashes

Around and
Around.
O little sea,

O my body,
Sit here with me
While I just talk.

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Daniel's spring break is over and my mother's birthday celebrations have concluded, so Nicole and her family have gone back to New York and Daniel is back in College Park. Before we took him there, we took him, Adam, and Maddy to see The Hunger Games in the IMAX theater in Silver Spring. It was even better than I expected -- I wasn't sure I'd love Jennifer Lawrence just because I hadn't seen her in much (not an X-Men fan) and I really wanted whoever played Katniss to be perfect in the role, and I thought she was terrific (the sexism of people complaining that Katniss doesn't look "half-starved" enough because the actress isn't anorexic, when the guys look like they've been eating well enough to bulk up, makes me want to scream). I found the film very true to Katniss from the books and in general I thought all the casting choices were great, especially Rue and Cinna. I never cared remotely who Katniss ended up with romantically but having seen this film I'm glad it ended up being who it did.

After the movie we took the kids to College Park, where we stopped in Ikea and had dinner (Paul wanted Swedish meatballs as a late birthday dinner and the rest of us are all happy to eat cheap there). Then we took Daniel to his dorm, though he discovered shortly afterward that he left his laptop cord at home. The Terps are happy tonight because the women's basketball team survived a threat from Texas A&M in the NCAA tournament (and I don't think anyone there is sorry to see UNC out of the men's tournament). Daniel was already making plans to see his former girlfriend before we left, so he was happy too. We took Maddy home and chatted for a while with her parents, who were saving cupcakes for Adam; we chatted right through Harry's Law and Once Upon a Time, then came home and watched two episodes of Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr., which like his previous ancestry show is excellent. Some more National Aquarium photos: