What are you going to do

with your bonus day?

February 29th.  Leap Day.  Have you thought about it?  As in what you are going to do with the bonus day.

Leap year 2020 has been on my radar for two years, but I’ve been forced to rethink how I will spend it. My son was supposed to get married that day.  The engagement was cancelled. The wedding plans were unraveled, and deposits returned. Two lives that were to be joined into perpetuity permanently diverged.  So, instead of going to a family wedding on Leap Day, I find that I have an extra day to plan.

Because Leap Day falls on a Saturday, I suspect that it will feel like just any other Saturday. Exercise, the farmers market, writing tasks, phone calls to family, and possibly a nice dinner out. But wait! Filling a day that comes just every four years with ordinary stuff feels as if I’m cheating Leap Day, keeping it from being what it should be – special!

So, how can Leap Day 2020 be unique and memorable?

Since the family wedding is off, I’m considering a visit to the East Coast, spending some time with one of my daughters and grandson. We love basketball so attending the Chicago Bulls – New York Knicks matchup is one idea being thrown around. Including other family members (all of them had planned on attending the family wedding that day too) would make the evening memorable.  The glitch is whether a family outing to an NBA basketball game is a fair tribute to Leap Day? I’m wishy-washy on this point.

Which reminds me. Do you remember what you did for Y2K?  

For those of you too young to remember, Y2K was the millennium, the day the calendar jumped from 1999 to 2000.  The hype for this event had the entire world concerned whether computer technology could handle the new four digits. Fear mongers perpetuated the myth that computers would crash. Significant power outages would roll across the country, and then bad things would tumble in behind the meltdown.  Of course, none of that happened. The world went on as it did on 12/31/99 and we all laugh about it. The media buildup. The dread. The aftermath that was nothing except ordinary. Just another New Year’s Eve.

I remember where I was for Y2K.  My immediate family, my parents and siblings clustered at our lake house in Indiana. We brought in the New Year with horns and party hats, stocked up on water, flashlights, and canned goods. Just in case. We packed coolers with ice and food. Loaded up on firewood.  In reality, there were too many folks and too many dogs in too small a space, but the experience of being together as a family felt right. It’s where we wanted to be, and we were with whom we wanted to tread into uncertainty. The experience was memorable. 

I want the first Leap Day of the New Decade to be another lasting memory, like the one from Y2K, but I’m still coming up short on the itinerary.  All I know is I’ll be with family.

Share what you think you will be doing and why?

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