Your Weekly Antics, Leap Day One Day Late Edition 3-1-2024

Well kids, here at The Antics we keep it light. We all hear enough about the housing crisis, the lack of shelter space for our homeless, rising taxes, long waits in the ER and such, and prefer to point out the many unnoticed oddities we come across that most of you could probably care less about. But that's what we're here for people, to make sure you take notice of the overlooked stuff that happens around us every single day. This week will be no different, so let's start with Leap Day. Here's what I've got...

1.February 29th, Leap Day in this fine Leap Year. We know Leap Day was yesterday, but here's a fun fact, it's an extra day. That extra day applies to the whole year, so we can use that extra day whenever we want, we didn't just have to use it yesterday. What does that mean for us? Not a whole hell of a lot that I can tell, but that’s not saying much. Perusing the internet for fun facts regarding Leap Year we came up with a few outdated ridiculous ones, and because I'm a giver, I'm not keeping all this nonsense to myself, I'm going to share it with you. You can thank me later.

2. Before delving in to some of the more ridiculous Leap Year superstitions here’s what else we found. Who knew that something as regular and simple as our yearly calendar was so complicated? According to the internet that is always 100% correct and full of confirmed facts, Leap Year originated around the time of the Egyptians. Julius Ceasar eventually got involved and conformed the calendar to what we have today. Prior to the introduction of Leap Year, the struggle was real with the days, hours and minutes of the calendar month; despite all efforts, the calendar, and time, are not perfect. Shocker, it’s reported that back in Ceasars time, the calendar was manipulated to benefit the politicians, and in ancient times there were whole leap months. Bottom line is, without this adjustment in our calendar once every four years, we’d be adding minutes, then hours, then days, messing up the calendar, and eventually celebrating our summer vacations in December. The math continues to be off, but that will be someone else's problem in the year 3,000. Artificial Intelligence will have taken over by then and I'm sure will have rectified the situation. If not, no big deal, Good luck and Godspeed.

Exhibit 1, my crazy friend Helen using her extra day this year doing the Polar Plunge last weekend in Hull, MA to benefit the Special Olympics.

3. In some places, thoughts on Leap Day are similar to thoughts one has about Friday the 13th and the day is considered unlucky. If you are born on Leap Day you are called a Leapling and in Scotland not only is Leap Day considered unlucky for farmers, but the entire Leap year is considered unlucky. Some Scottish farmers have been known to remark, “Leap year was never a good sheep year.” Did this actually hold any weight or was this said because it rhymed? Who knows. And whatever you do, unless you want your marriage doomed right out of the gate, avoid getting married on Leap Day. In the 5th Century, Leap Day was the one day every four years that it was socially acceptable for a woman to ask a mans hand in marriage. And, if he said no, it was still a win for her because if he turned her down, he had to reimburse her monetarily with furs, silk gowns or silk gloves - either way she was making out. Anyone care what I think about Leap Day? What I say is, don't look a gift horse in the mouth - take that extra day and run with it.

Exhibit 2, My friend Michelle spending her extra day playing with baby elephants in Thailand.

4. Here’s a Leap Day tradition some of you may like…dating back to 1928, the Leap Day cocktail originating from the Savoy Hotel in London. You don't have to go to England to enjoy this beverage, you too can celebrate Leap Day from the comfort of your own home, we don’t judge here at The Antics. The recipe is as follows:

2 ounces gin.

1/2 ounce Grand Marnier.

1/2 ounce sweet vermouth.

1 dash fresh lemon juice.

Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and shake well for 10 seconds. Strain liquid into a cocktail glass and top with a twisted piece of lemon peel as garnish

Drink up. Happy Leap Day one and all.

5. Enough of the Leap Year nonsense, we’re going to move on. While others were and are making strides and improvements in the world, there’s us. This is what captured our attention in Paxton and Tatnuck Square this week people, this large blue exercise ball. On several occasions one day while out doing the work of the people, I found myself traveling from Tatnuck Square to Paxton - Paxton to Holden - and then back from Holden, through Paxton eventually ending up back on Rte 122 back down to Tatnuck. You following? During these travels, we ran across this, Exhibit 3, 4 & 5 the blue exercise ball. Not something that would normally peak anyone's interest except for during its entire trip from Paxton to Tatnuck Square, it managed to remain in the bike lane while making its way down the hill. Too bad Mill Street is flat. Someone could've picked that ball up off the side of the road and rolled it back and forth up and down Mill Street’s new bike lane. At least then the bike lane would be getting used for something. Tell me I'm wrong...

6. How does one successfully have themselves removed from the weekly Wegmans trip? You act as annoying as possible while at Wegmans and you are guaranteed to never be asked to accompany the grocery getter again. Just like I finally gave up asking Al to fold the laundry. He did it all wrong long enough that I sent him packing. Two can play that game...

Exhibit 6, Al being harassed by the youngest Kap kid at the Wegmans register.

7. Thought I was doing Sue Miller a favor this week when running to a local farm stand and deli to pick her up a few things. She gave me her small list of items to grab and said to feel free to get anything else that I might think she wants. Well kids, Sue Miller likes sherbert, so when I saw rainbow sherbert, her favorite, in the cooler of this local small-ish deli, I grabbed it. I could be wrong but thought this was not a particularly popular item that would normally be stocked in a small Mom & Pop type store. Taking this as a sign, I got that sherbert out of the cooler and off to the check-out counter I went with the other items I picked up. I knew I was in trouble when the price for this frosty treat rang up at $6.99. I was quickly informed that I had been robbed, as the same Sherbert is offered at Shaw’s for $5.49. It was not fate after all, I'm just a bad shopper.

Exhibit 7, Sue Miller's $7 Sherbert

8. Exhibit 8, this rat bastard right here has begun to make it a habit to hang out in the planter on my deck at my back door. Staring through the kitchen window at me with his beady little eyes, attempting to shake me down and intimidate me in my own kitchen. Again, 4 dogs. There are 4 dogs here on any given day and not one of them could care less that this thing hangs out having a stare down with me 7 days a week. I'd like to send him rolling down Rte 122 stuck to that blue exercise ball.

9. JAWS. Everyone loves the movie JAWS. So much so, that the Massachusetts State lottery has decided to use the nostalgia New Englanders feel for their all-time favorite movie against us. They've gone ahead and made a JAWS scratch ticket. Knowing that having the JAWS artwork on the ticket will suck us in and distract us, making us think it will hurt less when you spend your hard-earned money to scratch away on the off chance that you'll win big. Hopefully those who like to dabble here and there in the occasional scratch ticket, don’t get too carried away and lose an arm or a leg hoping to win big. You see what I did there? I know, I'm wicked funny.

10. Picking up strays. Sometimes we pick up people. Sometimes we pick up cats and dogs. We've taken in a rabbit or two. We've been known to pick up the occasional pet turtle and even a pet mouse once or twice. Now we've moved on to plants. The youngest Kap kid has a green thumb and when out and about if I identify a plant in distress, I may or may not take it home to the youngest Kap kid who gets it back on the straight and narrow and after some rehab time, the plant goes back to the owner. We're all inclusive here down on our corner, no plant is ever turned away.

And last but not least, use that extra day we've been gifted wisely people, don't waste it.

Have a great weekend!