A Bonus Day Deserves a Bonus Post…
“Master be contented, this is leape yeare, Women weare breetches, petticoats are deare.”
From The Maid’s Metamorphosis, circa 1600
Today is an extra day…a special day…a BONUS day in fact. You see we’re in a leap year and that means we get to throw an extra day on the month so our good ‘ol Gregorian calendar can keep up with the earth’s 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, and 46 second rotation schedule around the sun. Phew! It’s exhausting just to think about, really.
Another way of looking at it is that we happen to be passing through one of the years whose date is exactly divisible by 4 except those which are divisible by 100 but not 400 -> That would be Brewster’s Dictionary sparkly clear definition of a leap year, by the way, which takes the cup for ridiculous mathematics in my book.
But these are all semantics…
What’s important is that we’re in BONUS territory and that means a BONUS post, BONUS pictures and, what is infinitely more interesting, a day of fun little traditions:
Leaper’s Abound: If you happen to be born today you’re a “leapling” or “leaper”, you will have fewer birthday anniversaries and your parents will no doubt save lots of money on presents.
Ladies Rule: If you’re a girl you may take “ladies privilege“, a more than 4 century old Leap Year tradition that confers ladies the “privilege” of proposing marriage to men instead of the other way around. Apparently any man who refuses must forfeit a fine which may involve both kissing and some appropriate token of clothing such as new gloves or a silk dress, depending on the county. I missed the memo on this one when I asked Paul to marry me in 1997 (my natural impatience wouldn’t allow me to wait for the leap year), but then I did get a “yes” which rather trumps the gloves for me 🙂
And what, might you say, does all this have to do with RVing? Well this is a bonus post so technically it doesn’t need to fit in, but for those women RVers out there I deem today as the day you’re in charge. Yup, it’s RV womanhood day, the day we weare breetches, rule the roost and make all the decisions (as opposed to the other days where just pretend to let our partners make the decision…right, girls?). At least that’s my decision today. And I give it to you all as a free bonus 🙂
not bad!
So are we going to see a picture of you in, what was it? “Breetches”?
Do you even have any “Breetches”? What the heck are “Breetches”?
I hope that’s not like “Gotchies”.
I was actually curious so I looked it up. It depends what period you’re talking about, but around the 17th century (when the play that I quoted was written) they look rather like pouffy pants gathered at the knee:
Wikipedia 1650-1700 Fashion
These days breeches are commonly accepted to mean something looking like riding pants. I have to admit I cheated and wore hiking pants all day yesterday…but I figure that’s a good RV approximation 🙂
Nina
OOOH I missed RV womanhood day! Can we do it again?
Well technically we’re in a Leap YEAR….so I don’t see why not. I consider the entire year up for grabs 🙂
Nina