Karla's Kolumn Leap Day and the four-year anomaly
February 27, 2016
Every four years February gets an extra day, so instead of 28 there are 29 days in the second month of the year.
Why? Well according to timeanddate.com, the additional day every four years, helps the calendar year (365 days during non-Leap Years) catch up with the solar year of 365.2422 days. What it means is by adding a day, we mere humans are trying to keep our calendars in synch with the Earth’s revolution around the sun.
There are many folklore and superstitions centered around Leap Day, which is Monday this year. It can be bad luck to be born or married on that day, similar to superstitions about Friday the 13th. However, I know two people born on Feb. 29 — my mother and my cousin. I wouldn’t consider them unlucky. While my mother has passed on, I would never look at her life as unlucky, after all she had three wonderful children (yes that includes me). She was married to my father (no not on Leap Day) for 49 years.
My cousin is a wonderful person and while she’s a Packers fan and she wasn’t as lucky this year, I don’t consider her unlucky, either.
As for being married on that day. I’ve met two couples while living in Basin and they were both married for decades. One couple her husband has passed. The other couple is still happily married.
Some are “unlucky” in love, but that can happen regardless of the day.
There’s always the question for those born, or married, on Leap Day, of when do you celebrate during those years where there is no Feb. 29. Some say, you celebrate after Feb. 28. Others say you must celebrate in February so they celebrate Feb. 28.
For my mother, in our family, it was easy. We celebrated Feb. 28, with a party for my mother and my brother, whose birthday is Feb. 28.
You think all of that is odd — bet you missed adding the leap second last year didn’t you. That’s right, a leap second was added June 30. According to timeanddate.com, “Every now and then a leap second is added to Coordinated Universal Time in order to synchronize atomic clocks with the Earth’s ever slowing rotation,” 26 times so far to be exact.
And with all this leaping going on, let’s not forget in two weeks we get to “leap ahead” in Wyoming for daylight saving time to begin this year.
Whew. All this leaping is making me tired.