COMMENTS & CURIOSITIES:

But first, some housekeeping. I want to apologize to my regular readers. I happen to know all five of them personally, and they are very nice people. Well, three of them anyway.

Through the magic of something called editing — an odd process that very few people understand — the final paragraph of last week’s column was dropped, lost, disappeared, vanished, went poof.

The result was the written equivalent of what happens when you fall asleep at the wheel at 1:30 a.m. on the 405 doing 85 mph and drive head on into an abutment, technically called a “sudden stop.” Sorry, these things happen, nothing else to say, life goes on.

Speaking of which, life goes on even in a leap year, which this is. Friday was Feb 29, which is the day that puts the leap in leap year, which as you probably know happens once every four years.

Just because something happens only once in a while doesn’t mean it isn’t fun.

But Feb. 29 also serves an important purpose, other than making it really hard to remember the last line of “Thirty days have September, April, June and November …”

Most of the world used the Julian calendar, which was named for Julius La Rosa, until 1582, when the Gregorian calendar, named for Gregory Peck, came along, which is the calendar we use today.

Whereas the Julian calendar had all sorts of problems keeping the start of seasons and holidays straight, the Gregorian calendar had only one: It had to be adjusted by 24 hours every 48 months, thus the addition of one day in February every four years.

Nobody really knows or cares about any of that today, except people born on Feb 29, who are called leap year babies, or leapers, or leaplings.

Personally, I would go with leap year baby. Leaper sounds like a 9-1-1 call, and leapling sounds like a rodent.

Even though they acquire whichever title they prefer by accident, most leap year babies grow up proud of their quirky status and are in fact considered very cool in certain cultures.

The running joke is that since they technically have a birthday every four years, their age is only 1/4 of yours or mine. It does have a downside though.

Some government agencies and companies make leap year babies use Feb. 28 or March 1 as their birthday because their software can’t handle a Feb. 29 date.

There are of course a number of celeb leap year babies, like motivational speaker, firewalker and annoying commercial maker Tony Robbins.

There also seems to be a particular bent toward the arts on the Feb. 29 team, like composer Gioachino Rossini (“The Barber of Seville”); Jimmy Dorsey (“Tangerine”); Dinah Shore (“See the USA in Your Chevrolet”); actors Dennis Farina (Det. Joe Fontana, “Law & Order”) and Alex Rocco (Moe Green, “The Godfather,” subsequently known as One-Eyed Moe Green.)

And of course here in our own corner of the universe, one of the best-looking leap year babies ever and maybe the only one who not only knows the difference between a dry fly, a wet fly and a nymph fly but knows how to tie all three, Julia Argyros.

Generally, hospitals like to beat the drum about the first baby born on Feb. 29, much like the first baby of the New Year, Christmas babies and multiple births, as in twins, triplets, quadruplets, quintuplets and above.

In the hours leading up to Friday and that rarified date of Feb. 29, two babies about to make their debut at Hoag Memorial Hospital — Abigail Hoopes and Faith Novak — were locked in a neck-and-neck, stride for stride race.

The respective parents of the small sprinters, Jeremy and Mary Ellen Hoopes and Benedict and Katie Novak, had mixed feelings about whether they wanted their newly minted babies stamped Feb. 28 or Feb. 29.

But everyone made their peace with all the possible combinations and results while the race was still being decided. Jeremy Hoopes said that when his daughter has to tell people something about herself, “… she’ll always have something cool to say.”

As the mothers did their part, one contraction at a time, the nurses kept each informed of the other’s progress.

One baby would lead by a centimeter, then the other, then the lead changed again. It was very exciting.

In the midst of it all, Katie Novak, Faith’s mother, got off the best line I have ever heard from a labor room, and coming from a line of obstetricians, I’ve heard a lot of them, almost none of which can be repeated here.

Katie Novak’s baby crowned first, but the nurses told her that the entire baby had to be free and clear for it to be an official finish. “Who came up with that rule,” Novak shouted, “the DMV?”

When it was all over and the checkered diaper was waved, both babies were officially declared Leap Year Babies, with Abigail Hoopes nosing out Faith Novak at the tape for the gold.

And there you have it. Being born is important, but when you do it matters too. If you are a baby or plan to have one, think about Feb 29. It may not be Dec. 25 or July 4, but it ain’t bad. I gotta go.

PETER BUFFA is a former Costa Mesa mayor. His column runs Sundays. He may be reached at [email protected].