I’ve never met anyone born on Leap Day, but a friend of mine and his twin brother came really close. My friend John was born on February 28, 1956. A few hours later and he would have been celebrating his 16th birthday today instead of having celebrated his 64th yesterday. In actuality, the odds of being born on Leap Day are 1 in 1,461.
Leap Day happens almost every four years. Did you notice I said “almost”? Years that end in “00” but aren’t divisible by 400 don’t have a Leap Day. Most of us will never see it in our lifetime. The last time this happened was the year 1900. We won’t skip Leap Day again until the year 2100.
So why the weird finagling with the calendar? We know the earth orbits the sun approximately every 365¼ days. It’s this “approximately” that messes us up. The real number is 365.242189. So if we skip Leap Day three times every 400 years, we hit it right on.
A few other fun facts about Leap Day:
1. People born on Leap Day are called “leaplings” or “leapers.” In Hong Kong, the legal birthday of a leapling is March 1. In New Zealand, it’s February 28.
2. There’s a club for people born on February 29—The Honor Society of Leap Year Babies. The club has more than 10,000 members worldwide.
3. One in five engaged couples in Greece will avoid marrying during a leap year because they believe it’s bad luck.
4. In Finland, it’s supposed to be good luck for a woman to propose on Leap Day. If her boyfriend refuses her proposal, he is required to pay her a fine—enough fabric to make a skirt.
5. In Ireland, the man who refuses a Leap Day proposal must buy her a silk gown.
6. And there’s a movie about it. In the 2010 romantic comedy Leap Year, a woman travels to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day, which tradition says he has to accept.
So, ladies, if you’ve gotten tired of your special someone to propose, today’s your day. For everyone else, however you choose to celebrate this holiday that comes around only once every four years, have fun!
Hmm, if it’s a really special day, maybe Mommy and Daddy will do something extra nice for us (nicer than the normal stuff). Like maybe they’ll give us some extra food and pour tuna juice over it.
Or put some more catnip in our toy.
Okay, back to the computer story. When it got later and Mommy and Daddy still weren’t home, Midnight decided to play on Mommy’s computer. I told him not to, but he did it anyway. I guess he figured he didn’t have to listen to me because he was a lot more mature.
Ziggy and I spend a lot of the day napping. That’s because we’re recharging our batteries. Right at Mommy and Daddy’s bedtime is when they get to full charge. It happens when Mommy goes into the bathroom to brush her teeth. First, Zorro jumps into the bathtub and chases his tail. You can hear him all over the house. Mommy says it sounds like a herd of elephants in there. When I jump in, he pounces on me. Then we both go flying out of there and chase each other around the house for a while.
We like to wrestle on the bed, too. When we do that, Mommy shoos us out of the room. Another fun thing to do is play in the blinds in front of the sliding glass doors. There are sliding glass doors in the living room and the bedrooms, so there are plenty of blinds to choose from. And they make the coolest sound. But Mommy doesn’t think so when she’s trying to go to sleep, and she yells at us. I guess people aren’t nocturnal, because Mommy gets grumpy at bedtime.
Over the years, our pets have included a golden retriever/chow mix, two long-haired dachshund sisters, an iguana and numerous cats. All of our pets have been rescues (except the iguana). Right now we have two black cats who are regularly part of my social media posts and who even take over my blog once a week.
Two weeks passed before we had our first date. Two and a half months later, we were engaged, and two and a half months after that, we were married. It’s been almost 40 years, and we’re still making music together. (Except now it’s at church rather than in a concert hall.)
For several heartwarming love stories that give The Notebook a run for its money, check out this 
Zorro is pretty weird. I don’t understand some of the things he likes to play with. Like the paper coming out of the printer. It doesn’t matter where he is in the house. When he hears it start up, I’d better get out of the way, because he’ll just about run me over getting to it.
But what really makes this toy the bomb is when Mommy or Daddy sprinkle catnip into the cardboard stuff. Aaaah, maaannn! Cats are supposed to act proud and independent. Cool and collected. Disinterested. But something about that stuff just makes us lose all dignity. I can’t resist it. Zorro can’t, either.
Zorro here. I just finished my morning bath. One of them, anyway. I’ll be taking several. Ziggy will, too. We pride ourselves on staying really clean.
Mommy says cat saliva has a deodorizing agent in it that helps keep cats clean. That’s why when I lick Mommy’s hand, it doesn’t smell bad. Unless I just finished eating. Then she says I have catfood breath. I’m not sure why that’s a bad thing.
I think I spend half my awake time licking myself. The other half I spend licking Ziggy. Cleaning Ziggy isn’t as easy as cleaning myself, because he has long hair. Sometimes I swallow too much of it and get an upset tummy.