Leap year

It's sort of disappointing, isn't it? I, I think we'll...

I mean, most people will be familiar with leap years, right? Both leap years and leap seconds are ways of keeping our time on Earth in sync with the movement of celestial bodies, speaking grandly.

And leap years are, they're about adjusting our calendars for the Earth's rotation about the sun, while these leap seconds allow us to adjust our clocks for the Earth's rotation about its own axis.

That's the sort of simple distinction, I think.

Yeah.

And this is, the le- leap second is obviously a lot more ad hoc.

We, we, we know when the leap years are gonna be going through to the end of time, but the leap seconds-

Yeah, ex- ex- exactly.

Six months later, the Festival of Leith ornamented the summer solstice and lasted either three or four days.

The first day of Leith began the festival, followed by Mid-Year's Day itself, followed in leap years by an over-leith, and then the festival ended on the second day of Leith.

In European calendars, a given date, like January the 1st, falls on a different day of the week every year.

Sometimes it's a Monday, sometimes a Tuesday, sometimes another day.

The hobbits prevented this disorder by considering neither mid-year's day nor in leap years the over-leaf to be a day of the week.

The first 26 weeks of the year ran continuously, starting on the second day of Yule and ending with the first day of Leith.

Then came Mid-Year's Day and the Overleaf and Leap Years, making a sort of long weekend.

We would think of them as one or two extra days following between a Saturday of one week and the Sunday of the next.

He's in the films Crackers, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Rooftops, Misplaced, The Reunion, and The Blue Diner.

He's in multiple episodes of Hill Street Blues and Leap Years.

He's in three episodes of the original series.

Then we've got Olivia Negron, who's playing Mrs. Morales.

What if our calendar were organized into months of exactly 28 days? That is precisely four weeks each.

In a 365-day year, this would yield 13 months of 28 days plus one extra day, two extra on a leap year.

Perhaps New Year's Day and Leap Year Day would be special holidays that simply exist outside of the monthly-weekly structure? Immediately one can think of how much of a headache that might be.

But might that only be because we're so used to the calendar we've lived with all our entire lives? Is it really better to have...

Our calendar madly divided into months of various lengths to the point where you have to memorize a silly jingle just to remember which ones have 30 or 31 days.

Right.

And then

you get once every two years, four years, you get a leap year day.

So literally like a month before COVID happened.

So this was actually it happened on Leap Day, Leap Year, whatever.

February 28th.

Yes, I remember.

LOOK BEFORE SHE LEAPS.

The 14th of February, in leap year, is a dread letter day for the shrinking bachelor and the shy, wife-shy, grass widower.

the butterfly winged statue of femininity that for three happy leapless years he worshipped from a safe distance at the foot of its pedestal has come to life has climbed down from its vessel perch changed fearfully from the cool quiet marble to something of the consistency of warm india-rubber from an adorable image to the female of the species and with all the term implies the butterfly wings of psyche iridescent like rainbows reflected on mother-of-pearl have shrivelled and blackened into the umbrella ribbed wings of the vampire and the pedestal lips from which could only be thought to issue the maidenly negative yes or the melting affirmative no are twisted into little scarlet snakes that hiss kiss me my fool look before she leaps is the leap year slogan of the shrinking bachelor and it is a perfectly splendid motto as mottoes go but a motto is like a cure for a cold which is only good to cure a cold that has not yet been caught and the shrinking one is already as good as caught and his perfectly splendid slogan is of no more use than an ice-box to an esquimau or a fur coat in hell The leap year bachelor's only hope is to feign death.

Like the bear in Aesop, the female of the species human has no use for any but a live one.

If he flees, he is lost, or found, according to whether the speech be given to the male or the female actor of the scene, and if he be a grass widower, he is made hay while the sun shines.

Now whether Providence intended the instinct of flight for the preservation of the hunted one or as a stimulus to the hunter will never be known.

With wolves and tigers it works both ways, but with the leap year vamp it works pretty much only one way.

And so the gentle bachelor flees and is caught and is lived upon happily ever after.

Um, I did also start, I'm currently in the middle of season two of Game of Thrones.

The other night wh- when I was staying at the hotel, I watched Leap Year.

It's one that I have in my personal collection as well, a movie from 2010.

Great fun.

Absolutely.

What about if you were born on Leap Year, on a-

Oh, well, I do have a friend who's Leap Year, and she's, like, 12 years old.

Um-

That's cool.

We worked it out.

As soon as he brought up Leap Year, I'm like, I'm fucked here because my

whole life- My whole life I've been like,

I know you have a birthday once every four years, but logically I don't know how, I've never known how that works.

LOOK BEFORE SHE LEAPS.

The 14th of February, in leap year, is a dread letter day for the shrinking bachelor and the shy, wife-shy, grass widower.

the butterfly winged statue of femininity that for three happy leapless years he worshipped from a safe distance at the foot of its pedestal has come to life has climbed down from its vestal perch changed fearfully from the cool quiet marble to something of the consistency of warm india-rubber from an adorable image to the female of the species and with all the term implies the butterfly wings of psyche iridescent like rainbows reflected on mother-of-pearl have shrivelled and blackened into the umbrella ribbed wings of the vampire and the pedestal lips from which could only be thought to issue the maidenly negative yes or the melting affirmative no are twisted into little scarlet snakes that hiss kiss me my fool look before she leaps is the leap year slogan of the shrinking bachelor and it is a perfectly splendid motto as mottoes go but a motto is like a cure for a cold which is only good to cure a cold that has not yet been caught and the shrinking one is already as good as caught and his perfectly splendid slogan is of no more use than an ice-box to an esquimau or a fur coat in hell The leap year bachelor's only hope is to feign death.

Like the bear in Aesop, the female of the species human has no use for any but a live one.

If he flees, he is lost, or found, according to whether the speech be given to the male or the female actor of the scene, and if he be a grass widower, he is made hay while the sun shines.

Now whether Providence intended the instinct of flight for the preservation of the hunted one or as a stimulus to the hunter will never be known.

With wolves and tigers it works both ways, but with the leap year vamp it works pretty much only one way.

And so the gentle bachelor flees and is caught and is lived upon happily ever after.