{"id":1425,"date":"2006-03-02T05:52:00","date_gmt":"2006-03-02T05:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/03\/the-lion-sleeps-tonight\/"},"modified":"2006-03-02T05:52:00","modified_gmt":"2006-03-02T05:52:00","slug":"the-lion-sleeps-tonight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/the-lion-sleeps-tonight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Lion Sleeps Tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was the first of March, as we all know. The proverbial Lion has arrived. I had a terrible day, and I&#8217;m sure that the gray crustiness that spread out before me everywhere I looked had a lot to do with it. Also, things have been really rough for a friend of mine\/with a friend of mine. It is hard <a href=\"http:\/\/http:\/\/www.tommcmahon.net\/2006\/02\/what_i_have_lea.html\">to keep one&#8217;s perspective<\/a> (thank you, Andrew!) in what looks like the Dead of Winter (capitalized because it is a real institution to me, not simply an expression) even though I know spring lies just underneath the dirty gray blanket of snow. Even though I know my friend loves me, it is hard to feel it when things are like this.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, happiness, like spring, lies quietly, hidden and muffled by all the noise that surrounds us. Last night, while picking the feta, spinach, and hot peppers off my pizza (I don&#8217;t eat the crust), I caught a snippet of Nat&#8217;s silly talk. He said, &#8220;Wimoweh,&#8221; very quietly.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Wimoweh?!&#8221; I said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No Wimoweh,&#8221; Nat said.  But he was smiling, my invitation.<\/p>\n<p>I started humming <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">The Lion Sleeps Tonight<\/span>, softly, not looking at him, sneaking up on him the way I think he likes best. I peeked at him and he was listening intently, smiling. I kept going, for as long as he would let me. I eventually ran out of words; it is a fairly limited song, after all.<\/p>\n<p>But Natty&#8217;s song,  and his little secret smile, helped keep the lion in winter at bay, if for just a little while.<br \/><a onblur=\"try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}\" href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/susansenator.com\/blog\/uploaded_images\/IMG_1632-725898.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"cursor: pointer;\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/susansenator.com\/blog\/uploaded_images\/IMG_1632-722738.jpg\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday was the first of March, as we all know. The proverbial Lion has arrived. I had a terrible day, and I&#8217;m sure that the gray crustiness that spread out before me everywhere I looked had a lot to do with it. Also, things have been really rough for a friend of mine\/with a friend [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-mZ","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1425\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}