Spring fever

As my afternoon went to coaching a group of law students in their moot court competition prep, I missed the chance to grab something for lunch. These events lead me to conclude the following:

1. I am really seriously nuts about my students (not all of them). When I listen to them speak, I see a future that is filled with their talent and humanity. I can’t wait ‘til my generation (and those before) steps aside from the legal profession, to be replaced by these guys.

2. I am really seriously nuts, period. Because I was running so late with everything, I decided to treat myself to a cup of coffee at Ancora. This is an indulgence because I cannot otherwise justify spending $3 for a latte that I can easily make in my office (and I have the fridge, the burner, and the stove-top little moka to do it, too). Since it was such a gorgeously spring-smelling day, I was rather upbeat and chipper in my slow meander toward Ancora (via parking lot, grocery store, post office etc.). At the entry to the coffee shop, a guy was sort of loitering, chatting up various customers as they were coming and going, in the most friendly of ways. Eventually he left, and I remarked to the sellers rather slyly “my, he was excessive!” And they smiled and nodded (sales people will agree with anything you tell them) and I left. And of course it struck me that I should not speak of “excessive” since I had just minutes ago spent a great deal of time explaining to a store clerk the virtues of buying fresh basil in February (he seemed genuinely interested), and telling the postal clerk that the stamps in Poland almost always have great artistry to them and this, in turn, opened the door for a number of other reflections on differences between the two cultures (the Hilldale postal clerks are extraordinarily patient with stories of this nature perhaps due to the fact that the average age of their customer tends to be 94 –prime time for story telling). Okay, it had not gotten to the point where I was accosting virtual strangers with conversational anecdotes, but still, I decided I should be more careful or else my mother’s predictions about the decline in the mental health of all our family members (she exempts herself I believe, which is good: we need to have someone keep the records of our demise) will have turned out to be true.