And Gutenberg Lived Here: Happy Leap Year- Honk If You Are A Savoyard

If you are a Savoyard-

one of the people who sing Gilbert and Sullivan at the drop of a hat,

can do all the patter songs

swoon on cue,

and can recite all the choice lines-

“in the reign of James the second, it was generally reckoned,

as a rather serious crime, to marry two wives at a time….

doubly criminal to do so,

if the maid had bought her trousseau,”

(from Trial By Jury)

then you are my kind of people.

And a happy leap year to you-

The special holiday of all the fans of Frederic

of the Pirates of Penzance,

who can’t get out of his apprenticeship until he is twenty-one,

and is unfortunately born in a leap year.

(spoiler: it ends well)

So if you also are born today,

or are a fan of those who are,

just put on the Barber of Seville

cook a great meal,

(I’m not a big fan of the google suggestion of frog legs-

so if you’re not, you might like leapin lima casserole-

basically tuna cashew casserole with lima beans instead of fish)

and celebrate along with fans of Gioachino Rossini,

who today would be celebrating his 220th birthday,

or his fifty-third,

depending on how you look at it.

And my, that man could cook.

So if you decide to celebrate,

with leapin limas,

a Rossini cocktail,

(strawberries and prosecco)

and a trip to the barber’s

enjoy.

On the twenty-eight if you are born before noon,

or the first of March,

St. David’s day,

if you are born after noon,

or just decide you like to celebrate with the patron saint of doves, poets, and Wales.

Perhaps with welsh rabbit?

Or rarebit, which is cheese.

But even if you decide not to celebrate,

And apparently,

there is a movement of purists,

who only celebrate in a year with a February of twenty-nine days,

this is your time.

Bachelor day in most of the USA,

Sadie Hawkins Day where I’m from,

this is the day the women can ask the men to marry them.

And if a man declines,

he has to buy her twelve pairs of gloves,

to hide the shame of her not having gotten an engagement ring,

or,

in Aurora Ilinois,

pay a four dollar fine-

payable to the women (deputized for a day)

who arrest males who are proven to still be single.

Hey, arrest enough men,

and the women of the town could give one heck of a hen party.

copyright Dunnasead.co 2016