It’s Our Fourth Anniversary

Wednesday, 29 February 2012

Happy Leap Day!

Leap Day, of course, is one of several days during the whose name I dispute. After all, today is the one day we are not leaping over February 29th. When you think about it, this shouldn’t even be called a Leap Year, since we are not leaping over anything this year; we are planting ourselves firmly in February for an additional 24 hours.

As is true with every February 29th, Jennifer and I celebrated our anniversary.

“What?” you say, “I didn’t know you guys were married on Leap Day!”

“Oops,” I say, “Let me clarify.” We were not married on Leap Day. In fact, our wedding annivsersary – occurring as it does on August 24th – is about as far from Leap Day as one can get.

However, it was on Leap Day in 1996 that Jennifer and I officially became engaged. We – or, as Jennifer likes to not, I – purposely planned it this way. In doing so, we were adding a certain uniqueness to our impending nuptuals, and I was enshrining yet another event to celebrate.

Yes, yes, I know we could have gotten engaged on any calendar day and subsequently celebrated each anniversay. However, let’s face it: who wants to celebrate something as pedantic as an engagement every year? Especially since Jennifer and I already planned to marry and had talked openly of it for months; really, nothing changed on February 29, 1996, except that Jennifer and I now both wore engagement rings.

The key here is to watch your phraseology. In 2004, after going out to eat for our anniversary, Jennifer and I returned to our townhome and a couple of friends came over. My friend Ryan, on learning it was our “anniversary” said: “Wow, so you guys have been married for over seven years, but you’ve only been engaged for two!”

No – he wasn’t quite right, and I had to correct him. Obviously we’d been engaged longer than we’d been married, just as a baby born on February 29, 1996 would currently be 16 years old despite the passage of only four Leap Days.

So here’s how we have to phrase it: “Today is the 4th anniversary of our engagment.”

See? That way it works.

Anyway, we went to Buca for dinner. As was apprpriate for our 4th anniversary, there were four of us in attendance. When the waitress sked if we were celebrating anything, Jennifer said no, but I spoke up and explained that my wife had just lied. Jennifer rolled her eyes. I told her I didn’t like that. She said she was embarressed. I said something like, “Who cares what the waitress thinks? Besides, this is Buca – they have a placemat listing off all the crazy shit you can come and celebrate with them.”

Yeah – it’s true. There was a placemat sitting in front of me that offered Groundhog’s Day and Daylight Saving Time as two of about 20 events to celebrate this month and next.

Anyway, happy anniversary to us. We’re already making plans for our next anniversary.