Happy Leap Year Day. Today is the day 2020 gives us an extra twenty-four hours to contemplate . . .
You know what? Don’t contemplate. Just leap (and the net may or may not appear).
Oh and also, women can propose to men today. This was big news in 1908.
Agency. I think it’s all about agency, which isn’t the impression that grandma up in that image seems to convey. My current favorite series (Sharing Knife, by Bujold) starts out with a girl marching down a road, fuming mad. Which is how a lot of your stories, including poor NEVER-TO-BE-WRITTEN Lily’s, start out. And it’s a great way to begin a story, since when you’re good and mad you speak a lot of truth, or at least emotional truth, and it’s coming out of a place where you want to be the agent of getting what you want, but you’re NOT GETTING IT.
And so the reader gets pulled into the story, understanding some way deeper things about that character than the ones you get from the kind of book that begins “…and Daisy, her wavy light brown hair and perfect (teeth/nose/blue eyes/etc.) touched by the gleam of a setting (rising/noonday/Mandalorian/etc.) sun, peered out over the ____ she so loved and thought about her lovely ____ and her faithful ____ and all the wonderful ____s her life was so full of….”
I’m just saying. Lily… fuming mad….
My step-mom proposed to my dad on Leap Day 1984. Actually, the decision had already been made, but to my step-sis and I, it was fun that Mom got to propose. They were married June 1984. It was one of the best decisions our parents made! I love my Mom and Sissy!
It’s also Rare Disease Day (since it’s the rarest day of the calendar), for spreading awareness about rare diseases. It’s grown to Rare Disease Week, with lots of events in D.C. where patient advocates talk to members of Congress (or their staffs), as well as local visits to politicians. Some hospitals dedicate rounds to rare diseases. Med schools sometimes do special events. Mostly, the focus is on reminding people that rare isn’t actually that rare cumulatively with one in ten people affected by a rare disease, and that more research is needed (which often has secondary benefits for more common disorders).
This is the first Rare Disease Day in years that I haven’t participated in events. Instead, I’m spending today, the last day of #dailyfeb2020 trying desperately to finish a few more projects!
I am a proponent of Calendar Reform. Currently, I prefer making all months 30 days long and tacking all the extras between June and July, including Leap Day. If someone insists on naming that time, call it Vacay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanke%E2%80%93Henry_Permanent_Calendar
Thank you, Ann. 🙂
You all know that in the traditional balls and dance parties, men invite women. In Russia, at least in the Soviet Russia, there was usually one dance during a party where ladies could take the initiative and invite their partners. It was announced officially by an MC as the White Dance. When I read “women can propose to men today” I remembered that.
I proposed to my husband yesterday. We have been married for 32 years but why let that stop me?
My husband was born on leap day, 13 birthdays ago for him. As compensation for only having a “real” birthday once every four years, we throw him a big party in leap years. It’s a great excuse to gather old friends we rarely see, but I’ve reached an age where having more than 10 or 12 people in my house at one time is stressful and exhausting for me. Maybe in four years from now I can talk him into a series of small dinner parties (and hire someone to cool for them :-)).