As an employee at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, Blomquist regularly has found herself the victim of computer glitches.
“Here at the university, someone had gone into the system and changed my birthday to the 28th,” Blomquist said.
But Blomquist always is ready to brandish her driver’s license because she would not dream of changing her birthdate. She relishes the distinction.
One of the biggest perks of being a leapling is the attention of being different, Blomquist said. Besides, it suits her personality so friends never are surprised to learn about her “weird birthday.”
After 44 years of jokes, Blomquist has embraced humor as a way of life.
Momentous occasions such as applying for a driver’s license often were interrupted with good-natured ribbing.
“The DPS officer told me that I was not old enough to get a driver’s license because I was only 4,” she said.
The jokes already have begun for rookie leapling Juan Jaime “J.J.” Luna, a sophomore at Flour Bluff High School who turns 16 today.
“I tease him a lot,” said his mother, Lisa Luna. “There was one time I was upset with him and I said, ‘J.J., you’re acting like you’re 3 years old. He said, ‘Mom, I only had three birthdays.’ ” Lucky for J.J., Mama makes up for it ... every four years.
“We go all out when we celebrate. He looks forward to each of his birthdays. We usually do a really big thing,” Luna said.
J.J.’s most memorable birthday, said Luna, was his 12th, which involved a scavenger hunt, a paintball war and the pièce de résistance — an electric guitar.
“The kids still talk about it,” she said.
This year’s Leap Day buzz includes talk of the four-day Worldwide Leap Year Festival going on in Anthony, Texas, and Anthony, New Mexico, a small town between El Paso and Las Cruces, N.M., officially recognized in 1988 as the Leap Year Capital of the World. This leap year’s festivities include sporting events, music, barbecue and a parade. Limos also will shuttle gamblers to nearby casinos, said Mary Ann Brown, one of the festival’s founders.
Sign-in started Thursday and already the town’s local businesses have begun to swell. “The manager of the Texas Tourist Information Center told us that he was dumbfounded that people would come from as far as they are coming,” Brown said. Folks from California, Arizona, New Hampshire, Connecticut and New Jersey have shown up.
The 2004 festival drew 104 leaplings, quite a jump from the nine Leap Year babies who attended the inaugural festival. Brown expects close to 150 this year. In Anthony, where the population generally falls near 10,000, the turnout translates into local hullabaloo.
“Everyone seems to have camaraderie, but it does get really hectic,” Brown said.
Aside from the festivities in Anthony, Leap Day is collecting quite a bit of press this year.
An article in The New York Times on Monday called attention to the slew of Leap Day promotions, including specialty cocktails and free lunches.
While the folks at LeapYearDay.com are committed to putting the day on the calendar, they have mixed feelings about mass marketing campaigns lending a hand.
“I don’t like that. We’re all Pisces. We don’t really care about the commercialism,” Brouwer said and added that the fishy Zodiac sign generally reflects a head-in-the-clouds outlook.
“The world is a special place and our birthday happened on a day that makes all the seasons come untied. That’s special stuff; you just can’t substitute it with buying something at the mall,” he said.
Instead, Brouwer suggests using the extra day to pause and reflect on larger ideas, such as life and the solar system.
After all, we have 1,460 days afterward to shop.
Contact Lisa Hinojosa at 886-3617