Happy Leap Day!

Women propose to their men-Irish and Finnish tradition

St. Oswald's Day-archbishop of York who died on February 29, 992

Here are a couple of things that are special for Leap Day. While I know it only occurs every 4 years, it always takes me by surprise. I worked for a lady who was a leap baby. She was mean. But she paid me on time.

I don't know who Saint Oswald is, so I figured I better find out a little bit about him. He was a king in northern England, or southern Scotland, who was pretty much responsible for the spread of Christianity in Northumbria. So there you have it.

As for proposing to men, here is what the Huffington Post tells us:

Women in Finland are advised to propose only on leap-year day -- Feb. 29 -- for good luck. If her boyfriend should refuse, he is required to pay her a "fine": enough fabric to make a skirt.
In Scotland, an unmarried Queen Margaret allegedly enacted a law in 1288 allowing women to propose on leap-year day. But there was a catch: The proposer had to wear a red petticoat (a skirt under her skirt) to warn her intended that she planned to pop the question.

And there you have that, too.

Our leap year tradition is to eat cupcakes. Not just any cupcakes, though we have done that in the past, but really good ones. You know the kind that costs a lot and tastes really, really good. They are not a dry cupcake and make you need a cup of coffee or a glass of milk to get the richness down. This year, we went to Cupcake Squared, a very wonderful bakery in the Ocean Beach section of town. Their cupcakes are square. They have the funnest flavors, lilikoi, not so red velvet, carrot, chocolate, lemon, peanut butter, macadamia nut and some seasonal flavors, as well. I went healthy this year and got a carrot cake. It was divine. There is no other way to describe it, no words to tell of how delicious it was. It's a good thing it was very rich because the Husband's cupcake is still sitting in the box, waiting to be devoured. I hear it calling.

Now we wait for 4 years to do this again. Well, really now, we will do this again a whole lot sooner than that, but you have to admit, it's a darn good thing to do.