Greetings all leaplings and leapers. You know who you are. Hope you're prepping for one helluva birthday party since you only have them -- well, legitimately -- every four years. Wednesday, Leap Day, is all about you -- and, of course, keeping the solar system in sync -- but birthdays are just so much more fun than astronomy. With all due respect to Galileo.
A leap or intercalary or bissextile year -- credit Wikipedia, the current source of all knowledge with supplying the more obscure terms -- comes every four years as you know. That extra day doesn't seem to upset our routine in any major way, but imagine if we followed the Chinese or Hebrew calendars that add an entire month. If it's a month like February, which always seems to drag on, it would be torture. On the other hand, if it's a month like July, filled with fireflies, warm sunny days and barbecues, the crowd would roar.
Typically romance is involved in a leap year. In some cultures it was the only time women could ask men to marry them -- sounds pretty dated now, doesn't it? And in Greece, leap year marriages were considered unlucky. Unfortunately, pretty much everything in Greece is unlucky these days.
So if you have a leapling or leaper friend, do something special for their birthday this year. They won't have another one until 2016.
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