As I mentioned earlier, I’m taking the day off today. Because Julius Caesar couldn’t quite figure out how to make all the days fit in one year, we get this marvelous extra day every four years, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste it with something silly like earning a living. Imagine what it was like to live back in a time when the calendar just got made up on the spot? I suppose it could be kind of confusing, like when you were trying to remember the great family vacation you took in the month of Sextus, only to find out that Sextus is now Augustus, and that there’s a random extra day there because the month of Julius has 31 days and we don’t want to insult Augustus with an inferior 30-day month.
While listening to the radio this morning, I learned a bunch of random facts about the creation of the months, but it was early, so I don’t know if I have all my facts straight. The point is that a bunch of mathematicians in robes ran some numbers and couldn’t quite fit a year into the right amount of time, and use February as do-over month to cover up their mistakes. Now I have to figure out how to use this extra time to my advantage. I just did some swimming this morning, and I think I’m going to follow that up with a nap. With the remaining few hours left in the day, I think I’ll bake some cookies to repay my neighbor for the wifi he lets me hijack, and then dig in my heels and cuddle up as we get yet another snowstorm tonight. Anyone got any better ideas?
One other thing I’ll be doing is guest posting on You are Flawed if You are Not Free sometime between now, cleaning up my oatmeal bowl and my big nap. So keep checking back over there!
February 29, 2008 at 8:35 am
Oh that sounds like a great leap day. I’ll be spending mine staring blankly at the computer screen.
I’m sure you’ll do some typing as well.
February 29, 2008 at 9:44 am
I hate today. That is all.
Word.
February 29, 2008 at 10:14 am
I guess at least it’s Friday even though I’m at work! And it’s jean’s day! But spending the day off does sound much better.
If I couldn’t wear jeans to work, I’d probably never wear pants.
February 29, 2008 at 10:40 am
what a wonderful extra day you are having…i am at work. poop. i need naps, swimming and cookies STAT.
did I tell you I started swimming? I try to go twice to three times a week at the YMCA. it is so relaxing and makes me feel strong all over, but not in a big musclehead sort of way. and i like the quiet under the water…except when I come up and the person I am sharing the lane with is trying to do the butterfly stroke about 2 inches from my head and slops water in my open mouth since I’m coming up for air…
There is a really splashy guy who swims in the lane next to me. Swallowing water has been par for the course. I hate it.
February 29, 2008 at 10:52 am
Happy day off. There’s a restaurant here that has 29 cent pancakes in celebration. If you lived here, you could have had breakfast for a dollar.
I wish I lived where you are, but I’m sure by the time I got there, I would have spent hundreds of dollars to get a dollar breakfast. Not that I wouldn’t partake in interstate travel for pancakes.
February 29, 2008 at 12:04 pm
Wow, two posts on your own blog and a guest post somewhere else. And all while I was sleeping. You raise the bar, Christmas Tree.
Yeah, but are any of them any good?
February 29, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Love the idea of Leap Day as a national holiday.
And St. Patrick’s Day!
February 29, 2008 at 1:55 pm
How about instead of this extra day nonsense I just get an extra hour of sleep a couple times a week? That sounds good to me…
That would work for me too!
February 29, 2008 at 2:19 pm
I’m glad you didn’t say that you’re going to “hunker down” tonight because man, that’s a goofy expression. Cuddling up sounds like a much better thing to do in a snowstorm. I will be doing the same in Chicago tonight.
Hunker down implies I’d actually be doing something with my time. Which I won’t.
February 29, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I love how everyone (me included) treats Leap Day like a day that is unlike any other day. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we all treated every day like a Leap Day? … I guess that would defeat the quirkyness that is Leap Day though.
I also like to treat July 11th like that. July 11 gets no love.
February 29, 2008 at 8:03 pm
You’re probably already cuddled up with your heels all dug in, but you could rent the other Die Hard movies. They get more ridiculous as they go.
You better believe they’re on my queue!
March 2, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I wish I’d taken Leap Day off–my day kind of sucked. And I won’t get another chance until 2012! Quel horreur!