Leap Day 2020 · 29 February 2020
I was almost done posting my blog post for this week when I realized something amazing. I was going to post something on Leap Day.
I know that Leap Day is not anything special in the whole scheme of things. After all, it does come around every four years. But I know that it does not come around all the time when I am about to post something. True, the something I was going to post was not necessarily that special (yes, still trying to become mediocre), but it is a fun piece. At least it was fun writing it. So imagine my angst as I decided at the last minute to post something completely different.
(Okay. It was not angst. Even though I did decide just before I posted the original blog post. But I like the word. ANGST. It is a funny looking word. One vowel followed by four consonants. And unlike many words in English (or any language for that matter), you pronounce all its letters.)
At any rate.
I figured that Leap Day was special enough that I had to write something about it. Yes, it comes up every fourth year. Yes, it used to be a day when it was acceptable for women to propose marriage to men. (I think it is acceptable for that any time anymore.) Yes, people are still born on that day. Which is actually amazing.
Believe it or not, I have known several people who were born on Leap Day. It is interesting because people always ask those people the same question. When do you celebrate your birthday in non-leap years? February 28th? Or March 1st? Inevitably, the people answer, whichever is more convenient. Which makes sense. But of course, somebody always needs to argue that those people ought to celebrate their birthdays on March 1. After all, that is the day following February 28. Right? And should you not celebrate your birthday on the day of, not the day before your birthday? Ah, the debate rages on. Still, people would argue that it does not matter when you celebrate anybody’s birthday, why should somebody born on Leap Day be any different.
The other fun thing that people born on Leap Day get to claim is that they are only one-quarter of their age. After all, the day on which they were born has only shown up one-fourth of the time of the number of years they have been alive. So sixteen-year olds who were born on Leap Day could use the excuse that they act immature because their birthdays have only come around four times, so they are really only four. Which means that in reality, they are really mature for their age. After all, being four and acting like a sixteen-year old is really mature, right?
Well, I will not belabor Leap Day any more. Nor will I make a lame dad joke about having to act like a frog and hop around all day because it is Leap Day. But I will say that I tend to like the uniqueness of Leap Day. It is pretty cool that people figured out that adding an extra day to the calendar every four years, makes the cycle of going around the sun turn out pretty close to the same every year. And it is pretty cool that some special people get to claim to be one-fourth of their age. And, of course, it is pretty cool that I was able to post my blog on Leap Day 2020.
© 2020 Michael T. Miyoshi
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