Leap Day 2012

THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE

February  29, 2012

The leap day list: 24 suggestions for celebrating a gift of extra time

Extra hours • Make every moment count with special plans for this once-every-four-years holiday.

Just about everyone has wished for an extra hour to take the kids to the park, clean up clutter or just get a little more sleep.

Wednesday — aka leap day — offers us not one, but 24 extra hours to do whatever we want. Booyah! (OK, that’s probably too enthusiastic since most of us still have to go to work or school.)

Still, The Tribune entertainment staff considers it a bonus day that beckons us to do something extraordinary — or at least something we can talk about tomorrow, when time will once again be short.

Here’s our official leap day list of 24 suggestions for not wasting another minute.

1. Sleep in.

2. Turn off your smartphone for one hour. (See if you can stand it.)

3. Clean the bathroom really well.

4. Spend an hour with that big book you’ve always yearned to crack, such as Moby-Dick or War and Peace. An hour will about do it.

5. Drive to Saltair to throw a rock in the Great Salt Lake, make plans to return in the summer to float, then drive home.

6. Play Scrabble with friends — the board game, not the digital version.

7. Find your leg warmers from 1982 and wear them to Zumba class.

8. Plant an indoor herb garden.

9. Climb Ensign Peak.

10. Call your mom and let her talk about your life for one hour without interrupting sarcastically.

11. Listen to music from a genre that’s always baffled you, such as Mozart or Buck Owens.

12. Watch the extended versions of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy or the first three “Star Wars” movies. (Trust us, you can skip the prequels.)

13. Take your unused gift cards and donate them to the YWCA Women’s shelter.

14. Walk through the Utah Museum of Fine Arts , and really look at the works. Or take a first visit to the new digs of the Natural History Museum of Utah.

15. Practice nonviolence by meeting Arun Gandhi, the grandson of spiritual leader Mohandas K. Gandhi. He’ll be at Salt Lake Community College Taylorsville/Redwood Campus at noon or at the Salt Lake Main Library at 7 p.m.

16. Cook something you’ve never attempted.

17. Take that short story (or résumé) to a community writing center and let a trained coach help you polish it. 

18. It’s karaoke night at Carol’s Cove II­ — belt out your best rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”. Or check our recent report about the local karaoke scene at bit.ly/osn4d0.

19. Go to the Sadie Hawkins dinner and dance at Log Haven.

20. Support a local band. There are three playing Wednesday at Urban Lounge .

21. Sip two exclusive wines — not available in the Utah state stores — during a wine dinner at Lugano.

22. Gather your smartest beer-drinking friends and enter a team in the Geeks Who Drink trivia contest at Piper Down.

23. Rent a copy of the 2010 chick flick “Leap Year.” Better yet, follow the Irish tradition and ask that guy of your dreams to marry you.

24. Go to bed early.

Since I was already planning to clean the bathrooms, I chose #3.  Clean the bathroom really well.  I left off the “really well” and gave the bathrooms a lick and a promise.  It’s definitely not extraordinary and I’m not sure I’ll talk about it tomorrow either.

I don’t remember it being called “Leap Day” before and I don’t remember thinking about how precious it is to have extra time, a whole day.  It seems very important this year.
Past Leap Year Days:
February 29, 1996:  Gym, school; usual, usual.  Work 5-10:30.  It's 2-29-96.  An extra day - but I found no extra time.  Now if we could have two Thursdays in a week, we might notice extra time.
February 29, 2000:  Leap Year Day.  Happens once in every 400 years.  Leap year is every 4 years except at the turn of the century unless it is divisible by four.  When Dad & Ed got home, we went over to the Budget Framer in Farmington and left all our pictures to be framed.  Then we went to the flower shop and ordered a dry floral arrangement.  DeRay started to hang a few pictures but they didn't turn out so he quit.  I went over to a baby shower for a new neighbor.  Things are shaping up slowly. 
Not a mention of Leap Day in 2004:

February 29:  Another 6” of snow on the driveway.  Ed went to block.  I met him at church.  Cai was here when we got back.  Meatloaf for dinner.  DeRay & I went over to Brooke’s in the evening to take Klarissa birthday gifts.  It pretty much snowed all day.  With my hurt knee I didn’t venture a walk, even though I wanted to.

Nor in 2008:

February 29:  Usual morning.  Games.  Walk in afternoon. Brigitte went to a birthday party but Brooke dropped the other three off at 5.  I fed them what they requested and let them watch TV as long as they wanted.  They finally wanted to play games so that’s what we were doing when their folks came home.  I think Isaak had it all plotted out.  Verla called to say she has pneumonia.  I hate for her to be alone.  I wish I could go up tonight.

   And in 2012, just think!  I cleaned the bathrooms.  Things don’t get any better than that!  I’ll probably go to bed early too.  Two things.

***

   This is my feature story for Leap Day.

   "Greater love hath no mother for her son, than she give up her towel when he forgets to take his to the gym."

   "I've got bad news, Mom.  I don't have a towel."

   If Ed had knows his dad wasn't going to the gym, he would have brought his towel.  When DeRay goes, he grabs towels for both of them.  DeRay dropped us off then went over to Les' office for a couple of hours.  Les and Raine are going on a mission March 12, so that leaves DeRay to manage the apartment building.  They are trying to sell it but they have tried before.  Anyway, so I went back in the dressing room and got my towel for Eddy.  I planned to dry off with the extra shirt I always keep in my bag but for some reason it wasn't there.  An extra swimsuit and a pair of gloves sufficed--sorta.