February 29, 2016--Leap Day

My favorite day. Leap Day. February 29th.

To realign the moon and stars and our calendar, it's inserted into February once every four years. Really big picture stuff. Bigger than health care policy or who messed up the Middle East.

And so complicated for the 10,800 Americans currently alive who were born then. As a kid, since I knew someone who had been, I worried about how she celebrated her birthday. Did she only get to blow out candles once every four years? I didn't know her well enough to ask directly about what I assumed was a frustrating situation. But life was simpler. Life was sweeter back then.

And then wasn't February 29th also Sadie Hawkins Day? Made up or made popular by Al Capp in his classic comic strip Li'l Abner?

I was a little older when that became an issue. It was allegedly, in old fashioned ways, the one time when girls were free to ask boys for dates to dances or take the initiative in seeking other forms of romantic activity.

As a socially maladept adolescent you can imagine how I felt when no girl ever chased after me. I had to wait to much later until I developed enough self-confidence to manage to get up the gumption to approach girls.

So celebrate!

We are visiting family in St. Petersburg (which by coincidence in 1892 was incorporated on February 29th) and then later this evening, when we're back in Delray, we'll see if Rona comes looking for me.

I'll play easy to get.