From SKZB, a brief and interesting overview of February 29th:
Leap Day has a tradition going far, far back in time. In ancient Sumeria, it was considered a day for taking chances—for doing things normally considered too risky, such as entering a hitherto unexplored cave, descending a steep cliff, or making wisecracks to airport security. The Aztecs celebrated leap day with drunken revelry and corset piercings. To the Hunnish tribes, it was a day for telling long jokes that always ended, “That’s what the horse said.” The ancient Celts saw it a time when the barriers to faerie were thin, so they would engage in religious rites at stone circles in which they would ask the gods to please give them a better calender. The magyars saw it as a day for eating fine food and having wild, abandoned sex—in other words, they didn’t take particular note of it.
Note: the minute I saw the comment about the magyars, I knew that, in this blog of several posters, this one was Brust. And now I crave, in a mental and not at all tied to my stomach way, langos. I wonder if there’s a decent Hungarian restaurant within driving distance? (And I’d be willing to be generous in my definition of driving distance, here…)
Some interesting stuff there. When I was in grade school, I knew someone who celebrated his birthday February 28th because he’d been born February 29th. Whenever a Leap Year occurred, his family would throw a truly wild party for him; sort of, I suppose, on the same theory as kids who have parties during the school year when their birthdays are over the summer (like my sister), but bigger.
While I’d like to have interesting things to say today (and I even might), the reality is, my feeling better yesterday devolved over the night, and I’ve to go throw up. Again.