Happy Leap Day (or is it "Merry Leap Day?)

I didn't start Valentine's Day, dummy

February has really gotten hosed.  It is the shortest month of the year – 10% shorter than some overrated months like August and March (August? Pfft.  Please). What February lacks in quantity, however, it makes up for in quality.  Some of the greatest, most influential presidents in history were born in February:  George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.  Other great Americans were born in February, too: Charles Lindbergh, Tina Louise, me, Jennifer Aniston, Tennessee Ernie Ford, me, Bobby Valentine (who started Valentine’s Day) , Cindy Crawford, and did I mention…me!

One thing February boasts (other than being the month I was born) that other months can’t is a flex day.  Other months boringly have the same number of days each and every year.  (Where’s the adventure in that?)  February, however, delivers us a special gift of an extra day – a 29^th day -- once every four years: Leap Day!

There are some unique Leap Day traditions that you may not be aware of:

·          Leap Day is also known as “Privilege Day” because on February 29^th women have the “privilege” of proposing to men.  While doing so, the woman must be wearing a red petticoat.  If the man declines the proposal he must give the woman a silk gown and a kiss.  I think the origins of this are found in the Book of Leviticus or the Book of Assumptions, I don’t remember which.

·         If you wake up on Leap Day and see your shadow, then that means the sun is out.   Not only that, it means that sometime within 24 hours the sun will go down and you won’t see your shadow anymore (it is eerie how accurate this is). However, if you don’t see your shadow on Leap Day morning, then Darth Vader will come down from the planet Vulcan and melt your brain.  (Fingers crossed for that shadow).

·         The TV show 30 Rock had a recent episode where the writers created a series of Leap Day traditions.  On February 29, Leap Day William visits and trades candy for the tears of children.  If you don’t wear traditional blue and yellow on Leap Day, you get your eye poked and your hair pulled.  Expressions used on Leap Day include “Real life is for March” and “Nothing that happens on Leap Day counts”.

In many ways, Leap Day is the most important day of the year (every four years, that is).  Well most important next to Christmas, Easter, my anniversary with The Wife, Super Bowl Sunday, Independence Day, the Wife’s birthday and baseball Opening Day.   It is Leap Day that holds together time as we know it.  A complete revolution around the sun (or what we’ve dubbed “a year”) actually takes 365 days and 6 hours.  Leap Day is the necessary adjustment to keep things on track.  Without this adjustment, we would slowly drift off course and the Earth would spin wildly into the Sun.  Well, maybe not that, but without a Leap Day, we would inch towards a time when Winter is Summer.  Or is it Summer that becomes Winter?  I’m not sure which way.

The thing we can take from Leap Day is not that “nothing that happens on Leap Day counts” but that “everything on Leap Day can count”.  In the spirit of Leap Day, is there a course that needs adjusting in your marriage?  (Or as Led Zeppelin told us in Stairway to Heaven “there’s still time to change the road you’re on”).  A tweak here, a nudge there may be just what you need to keep your brain from being melted and keeping your relationship on the track that you intended.

Leap Day greetings to you and yours!