They say March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb, but as a saying, that doesn’t quite jibe with me. It’s sort of like “money can’t buy happiness,” when a Cadbury Creme Egg only costs 59 cents (plus tax) — that’s not only happiness — it’s happiness with a creamy fondant middle.<\/p>\n
The lion-lamb idiom may work in England, where it originated, but what about places like Placentia, California? Yes, that’s a real city; my parents live there — it’s in the Uterine Valley, right next to Fallopia. Anyway, Placentia enjoyed 65-degree sunshine all this past week, conditions I’d hardly describe as “lionine.” They’re more akin to one of those miniature hairless cats.<\/p>\n
Here in Juneau, of course, March can come in like a lion (and also go out like one), although so far this year, I don’t know. What’s a little less than a lion? A leopard, maybe? Or a cheetah? No, wait. An ocelot<\/a>. Yeah, that’s it. March 2019 is coming in like an ocelot.<\/p>\n [Still slacking after all these years]<\/a><\/ins><\/p>\n See, that’s my first beef: what kind of lion are we talking about? The Cowardly Lion? Aslan, from the “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”? The Detroit Lions? Does that mean March comes in like the underachieving NFL franchise of a recently resurgent post-industrial Midwest city?<\/p>\n And while we’re on the subject, which lamb? Because “lamb” can refer to the meat as well as the animal, in which case March could conceivably go out with a side of mint jelly, or, in Scotland, minced, salted, spiced and then stuffed back inside its own stomach to simmer for three hours.<\/p>\n This is to say nothing of L.A.M.B., a fashion line by Gwen Stefani, lām, the 12th letter of the Arabic alphabet or novelist Wally Lamb. In this scenario, March goes out like a best-selling author noted for his realistic portrayal of female characters.<\/p>\n Of course, other March-based aphorisms exist. There are, most famously, the Ides of March, of which Shakespeare originally warned us to beware. While every month has an “ides” — from Latin, meaning “half-division” — March’s ides gained notoriety as the day Julius Caesar was stabbed to death, 23 times, in the Roman Senate. And you thought the current political climate was brutal.<\/p>\n