Go Fish Smackdown

Fiorellina is at a great age (5). She's totally confident with her numbers and letters so she can play games now. We got a game box from one of the grandmas with some board games as well as Go Fish, Old Maid and Crazy Eights.

She's not fooling around with the Go Fish. We've been in a tournament since yesterday afternoon and she's really good. No need to let her win, since she beats me 1/2 the time. And she's so proud of herself! She gets a devlish little laugh when she gets the cards she needs and she's also figured out how be sneaky - as in when she knows I've got a card (because I've been asking for it) as soon as she draws it, she remembers to steal if from me! And she even looks sneaky when she does it.

The tourney recently had to close when one of the 9 cards went missing. It's around here somewhere, but we're going to move onto Crazy Eights. Let's see how she does when the stakes get a little higher and the game gets a little more complicated.

A Flurry of Holiday Posts, Part I

I guess I needed to be off the grid for a few days. I've spent most of my time since returning from Ottawa with the kiddies, getting ready for Christmas (which came and went in a hurry), and making up for some lost time. We spent two days up north at my parents house. A Humble Chef returned to T.O. on Boxing Day so he could go to work early the next morning, but the kids and got home yesterday afternoon.

My favourite thing at Christmas, except for watching the kids get whacked out on excitement, is sitting in my parents' living room in front of the Christmas tree and the fireplace. The snow was missing this year, but I read a good book - A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright. It was with a bit of reluctance that I took leave of the couch in front of the fire and packed up the gifts, and the luggage and the kids and drove home. I think I may be a little less fond of the city after that book. The country makes me crazy for its own reasons, but it's hard to beat for pure relaxing.

unMotherhood?

Since September, I have dropped Fiorellina off at school exactly three times and all three times I managed to get her there late. Friday, her last day before Christmas break, was no exception. Apparently she also normally goes with a school bag, a snack, and a gift for her teachers. Am I supposed to know where her school bag is, what she eats for snack or whether anyone has purchased gifts for her teachers? Okaaaaay, being her actual mother, some people might expect that I'd know such things.

I sort of forget how long it takes to get two little children dressed in the morning, the negotiation and wrangling required. It takes longer than 20 minutes, so I really need to get them up before 8 a.m. if I want to get out the door by 8:25 a.m.

But I did alright when she started barfing this morning (without fail, someone gets sick at Christmastime). And I got through two entire hours of shopping on the last Saturday afternoon before Christmas with the Big Boy in tow, with nary a meltdown. Now that's parenting.

Now There Are No Green Speckled Frogs

Last exam done and done. Well, at least until I figure out whether I completely bombed it. In which case I get a do-over for this one because of a medical deferral which I could have taken advantage of. What's that you say? A medical deferral?!

Yesterday, I spent 3 hours in the clinic to discover that I have an inner-ear infection. That would explain the dizzy, stumbling around. I sort of temporarily wondered if I'd done some drinking that had slipped my mind. Nope! Turns out I have fluid in my centre of balance.

So that created a kind of unhappy exam situation. Didn't study much yesterday, but didn't exactly feel unprepared. I didn't want it hanging over me during the holidays, so I just got it out of the way. It wasn't the most pleasant experience I've ever had but exams never are, are they?

On the plus side, my true friend and colleague gave me a bottle of Scotch for Christmas. A bottle of Scotch! We have a pact to drink it together, glass by glass between January and April.

On the plus-plus side, I'm done my first semester of 1L. And I better than survived.

Feelings, Nothing More Than Feelings

I realised in my last post that I managed to be both abjectly apathetic and giddily excited. Somehow not complimentary feelings, and yet true under the circumstances.

And nothing says conflicting emotions like more youthful poetry! I don't know why, but I'm terribly amused by my youth these days (not that my youth is behind me...)

5-y-o rage, 2-y-o jealousy (Per E.) (Nov. 98 R.E.)
a description of your
five-year-old rage
goes like this:
frustration that hyperventilates
over nothing but frustration
and an inability to communicate,
hate that you cannot understand;
my bruised body on the brink
of alcoholism at the dinner table
and patience that exists
only in the imagination.

your two-year-old jealousy is:
blond, curly hair
and short, like silk
that demands attention
and curiosity,
a guttural laugh
and a giggle;
twice what you are
and yet not at all,
love and hate
and bittersweet,
that's all.

Now that I have kids, that has a bit of a new meaning, even though my kids totally love each other.

And Then There Was One

In spite of my more or less abject apathy towards the writing of exams, torts was quite amusing. Anything that involves James Bond with a tatoo across his muscled chest that says "Do Not
Resuscitate" is at least going to be amusing. Who can say "consent to medical procedures"?!

Post exam playlist: Chris Isaac, Hawksley Workman, Cat Power, Sarah Harmer, and Danny Michel all on shuffle.

I'm feeling giddy excitement at the prospect of only having one exam left. If only it wasn't going to kick my a**! But none of that matters now. Che sara, sara and this time next week I'll be sitting on the floor of our living room in T.O. surrounded by castle toys and wrapping paper and the three people that give me the best reasons for being in law school in the first place.

Brain Junk

I have resorted to Pizza Pizza, Coke and M&M's to get me through the next several hours of tort law. My brain is feeling cottony at the moment (and why I think junk food will help that is completely illogical). I've officially become bored with exams. There is nothing exciting about this process, unlike law school in general.

We're headed into week 3 of exams, most of which has been spent labouring over some form or another of summary in relative isolation. I'm feeling cut off from my peers and profs, which is what (whom, to be precise) I like the most about law school.

Isn't there some constitutionally protected right being infringed by this stupid process?????

Bruce Ziff, I Owe You A Beer

I might just pass my property exam tomorrow, thanks in no small part to Bruce Ziff, author of Principles of Property Law (Fourth Edition) and accompanying case book. Thank you, Ziff, for the following two sentences:

"In short, under Canadian property law all testators can become King Lear for a day!" (It would not be the same without that exclamation mark!)

"Until relatively recently, engaging in the Sisyphean chores of housework had not given rise to right to the property over which one laboured..." (Apparently, Ziff has feminist aspirations.)

And the following five words:

Hedonic 1 of or characterised by pleasure. 2 Psych. of pleasant or unpleasant sensations.

Fugacious 1 literary fleeting, evanescent, hard to capture or keep. 2 Bot & Zool. falling or fading early; soon cast off. I can't even believe this is a real word!

Chary (qting judgment) 1 cautious, wary. 2 sparing; ungenerous. 3 shy.

Otiose adv. serving no practical purpose; not required; functionless. He's not talking about property law is he...?

Hortatory adj. tending or serving to exhort. These words exist for people to use them. Good on ya!

No, seriously Ziff, I think you might be friends with my prof, so next time you're in town, I totally owe you a beer.

The Optimist Revealed

In lieu of sleeping (restless) or studying property law (cant...take.it...any.more.) I've spent quality time with PhotoShop (oh, how I've missed you). I could be drinking Scotch right now (nod, nod) but instead I shall write about why I am a The Closet Optimist.

Curiously, it all began in this very city at the piano bar of the Chateau Laurier...

There was a time in my life when I was a Millennium Scholarship Excellence Award Laureate (I am officially a nerd) and I was here for a conference. Typically, I was hanging out with the cynical do-gooders, the ones who skipped laugh yoga to go to the bar for a drink. We kept kind of making fun at the people who were really chirpy. On the last night, after the gala at the Chateau, the same few of us hit the piano bar. And we invited Andrew Woodall (director of the Excellence program) to sit with us. And we challenged him a little (but probably not much) on the relative merits of chirpy do-gooders. And he said to me, "I don't believe for a minute that you're really a cynic."

To which I replied, after a moment of thought, "Ok, I guess I'm a closet optimist." And they all liked it, so here we are today.

It's Back! The Recurring Exam Nightmare

It just happened. I just had a two-hour nap to recover from my constitutional law exam (Damn you, Law test! Damn you, remedies!) and while sleeping I had the recurring dream that I inevitably have during exams and when I'm under particular stress.

The dreams always change a little bit to fit the circumstances (for example, this one took place in my Ottawa apartment), but they always involve some or all of my teeth crumbling out of my mouth.

Who can tell me what that means? It's a recurring dream that I've had for many years now. I kind of have a thing about my teeth, I guess. My dentist likes to say that I won the genetic lottery with my mouth, so there's very little chance of my teeth crumbling and falling out, but apparently the thought horrifies me.

Norman Mailer, One Helluva Guy

The Proust Questionnaire in the January edition of Vanity Fair features Norman Mailer and he has some of the most fantastic answers ever!

Q: What is the quality you most like in a woman?
A: Beauty, mystery, wit, and the inner superiority to be above political correctness.

Self, let me be that woman!

Welcome to Ottawa, the Smallest World in the Town

Apparently Ottawa is the Capital of the Small World.

During orientation I met a woman at an event. We started chatting and turns out she's got a two-year-old son, so we jive on that. Turns out we have a couple of classes together and eventually we figure out that her husband grew up in the same place I did. He went to school a year ahead of my sister. Then, another day she tells me they were back there for a wedding. Whose wedding? A girl and guy that I went to school with (I was in school with the guy from the time is was in primary). Who was the maid of honour? Another girl I was friends with when I was younger - our dads worked together.

Then, one day I'm in line at the coffee shop (coffee is the friend of all law students). Another woman I have some classes with turns and says, "I know your cousin in Winnipeg, we worked together." Whatthe?! Then last night, I found out the same woman actually knows my roomie from when they were both at Glendon a year apart. So she was there when I was there (my brief stint at Glendon), and I totally thought she looked familiar, but I just thought it was from seeing her around law school. Maybe not.

It's a small world after all.

* I just met someone today whose husband is from where I grew up too AND she knows some people I know from the good old Awenda/SMATH/DiscoHarbour days. What a weird place this is...

The Official Last Post Before Exams

I doubt this will be the last post until Dec 21 (my final day of exams), but this is the last post until exams begin. Tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.

People are starting to go a little crazy. I'm either in a state of denial or sheer confidence (sure, I'll get all that studying done!).

Chris Isaak, for some reason, has become the music to study to. Mellow, but not too boring, and not too not-boring.

I need to go grocery shopping but it seems like the sort of thing I can't take a time-out for. Stupid! Since eating would probably be a good idea. So far I've survived on egg sandwiches, but there are only two eggs left, so that won't get me through today.

Okay, time to end this excessively boring post (you know you're avoiding when...). Contract law, here I come.

All I want for Christmas

Just in case Santa reads blogs, here's a random list of things I'd dig:

* Extra battery for my Dell Inspiron 9300. Long train rides. Short battery life. Two outlets per car. That's math that even I can do.
* Black's or Canadian Law Dictionary. I don't know if this will help me, but I have that thing about dictionaries.
* An iPod. Yes, I might be the only person who doesn't have one. AND I'm totally getting suckered in, but my current MP3 player is underperforming - my musicon has dramatically improved since moving in with my musically well-endowed roomie. I need something with some serious capacity.
* A digital SLR. Haha! No one's going to buy me that, but I thought I'd throw it in. Bizarrely, law school is making me extrememly creative while leaving me with little time to pursue and even fewer resources to execute. I'm trying to work that part of it out, to no avail so far.

This will all be moot if I fail to survive exams. Maybe that should be on my list too.

Our Children Are So Precious When They Are Young

Not that I'm having existential crises all of the time about the choice to live in a different city from my children in order to study law or anything, but I would hardly be human if I didn't occasionally feel a bit hard on myself. As a society, we love to love mothers and we love to hate them.

Anyway, occasionally my children affirm me. They still love me, apparently, in spite of the weekly abandonment. According to cher monsieur, our charming and adorable five-year-old said that mummy goes to a "special school only really smart people go to" and that her school is for playing and having fun but mommy's school is really hard but still fun.

Last week, she spied snowmen decorations on someone's lawn and said that we should get some too, but that we should get snow WOMEN. Awesome! She's a feminist!

That kid is smart as a whip. She's waaaaaay smarter than I am. And she's totally adorable. And I'm not just saying that because I'm her mother. I swear.

We Are So Precious When We Are Young

I half take back what I said below in the Wordsworth post about being poetic. Apparently there was a time in my life when I was poetic. Or at least I wanted to be. It coincided with the time in my life when I was living in Europe, riding a bike everywhere and drinking a bottle of wine per day (oh, shut your judgmental mouths, the wine was provided to me by my employers who still entrusted me with their little children and obviously realized that a bottle of wine would help in the rearing of their brood. When in Rome...).

This may be destined to be Awkward Web Moment Part II, when I reveal my youthful poetry, but it's so precious, that I'm going to risk humiliation.

Good Advice (Feb 99 R.E.)
Shed this agony of separation
and dance! Dance!
Dance as if you were barefoot
on the green grass of summer
Do twirly-whirls until dizzy
as you did when a child
And welcome back the innocence
of those pleasures
that's love's treasure map
has led you to rediscover,
Those treasures you once hid
from Pirates.

Just pretend it wasn't me who wrote that next time you see me. In truth I was a different person anyway, so that wouldn't be much of a stretch.

Ambiguous No More

Wow, the aforementioned ambiguity totally lasted as long as it took me to walk to the bus stop in the freezing rain.

Nothing says fun like a four hour train ride in wet clothes.

First Snow of Ottawa

Yesterday morning it may have been 10 degrees and warm, but this morning I woke up (after a night of unrest) to snowfall. I feel a little ambiguous about this new weather development. I hear it's unrelentingly cold in O-Town during the winter months. But I wore my real winter coat for the first time today, and I kind of liked it.

When I walk to the bus to go to the train station, I usually walk past this church on Wilbrod. All fall I noticed on the sidewalk these beautiful impressions of fallen leaves. I could never tell if they had fallen in fresh cement and left a sort of fossil, or if they were just fallen leaves that decomposed until they were a ghost of their past selves. They always always struck me as just so beautiful.

The smoke pluming from the chimney of the house below my window is lovely and rich, but the sidewalks are already dirty and wet. Will the ghosts of our past selves be lost in the mush?

Like I said, ambiguous.

The Law of Encroachment

Tomorrow is December 1 and I am three classes and five exams away from being finished my first semester if 1L.

Law school is encroaching on my ability to do laundry, or bake muffins (I need to invite people over for breakfast more often), of my budding career as a blogger (but what would I write about if I wasn't in law school); I've spoken to my husband for maybe 25 minutes over the past four days and I haven't seen my kids on the webcam since they dropped me off in Ottawa on Monday. I have spent more time in the library this past week than in my entire four (or five if you want to count it that way) years of undergrad.

But one of my friends said something to me tonight. She said she knew she would be at my funeral many years from now. It kind of surprised me, in a nice kind of way. I've met more people that I like personally and intellectually over the past 12 weeks than in my entire life before. These are the people who will be my friends for the rest of my life. I find this comforting since coming to law school was the first undamaged, real decision I ever made for myself.

It's overwhelming at times to feel as if I've found my way.

Food for thought (cliché but apropos)

There's this scene in the movie A Bug's Life where the praying mantis is doing his magician thing and he points to the Chinese takeout box and says, "Transformation, transformation, transformation..." and the butterfly emerges. That's kind of how I'm feeling right now about me and cooking.

This weekend I actually cooked a whole chicken! With creamy mashed potatoes and a really good looking mirepois and "the best tomato salad" one of my guests had ever had. That's pretty cool for me. I've had a complex ever since someone started baking brownies to win over my sister. And then went to chef school. And now cooks gourmet meals at home just for fun. How does one like me live up to that?

By moving to Ottawa. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. No money to buy take-out (and I just can't even handle that anyway, since living with a chef has made my standards a tad out of the ordinary), so it was either cook or starve.

It's pretty simple usually, but I'm up to a nice stew, chicken cacciatore, a perfectly rare pepper steak, and my whole chicken (rubbed with olive oil, coarse salt, pepper, garlic and rosemary, then slow-cooked in wine and chicken broth). Plus I'm pretty good at omlettes.

And this morning I even baked muffins. Muffins!

Transformation...

Awkward Web Moment, Part I

I don't know why we (as in my favourite partner and I) decided this, but Friday night we thought we'd leave the webcam running, I guess so we could just holler at each other across the ether.

Lesson #1 on why people on reality TV do really ridiculous things in front of a camera: it's easy to forget about the camera.

That's right. I forgot about the camera. I was getting ready to go out, and I turned on a little Hawksley Workman and, of course, I started to dance. Because you can't listen to Jealous of Your Cigarette and not. And then, bizarrely, I sort of felt like I was being...watched. And indeed, my charming monsieur, attracted by the loud music coming across the ether, came to investigate and saw me gettin' down. It was very similar to secretly watching children play acting - it's beautiful but they're frequently embarrassed when they're caught out even though they shouldn't be.

At least it wasn't his parents! That would have been the end.

Gotta love those judgments

This is the best line I've read all day (of course, it is only 8:45 a.m. and there's always a good chance that things will get better in torts):

"Such circumstances can easily be distinguished from those of a corner store that carries the odd porno flick among an othersiwe unremarkable video collection."

I feel the need to share that kind of line with those of you who may not spend any time reading case law. It just wouldn't be fair to keep these gems to myself.

Wordsworth Repeating

Okay, it's only barely like me to be poetic, but given the title of this post, I thought I should make an attempt at finding some actual Wordsworth. Here's what I've got:

A BRIGHT-HAIRED company of youthful slaves,
Beautiful strangers, stand within the pale
Of a sad market, ranged for public sale...

That part of it kind of made me think of law students and law school and my law future, but in the bad way. (The rest of the poem is here.) Sorry to the Wordsworth fans and scholars who I've insulted by totally misinterpreting this for my own selfish uses.

In any case, I’m going to deviate from the norm and post excellent words from the law paper of a true friend and colleague, instead of my favourites from judges. Anyone who can use these words in a criminal law context is okay by me.

conundrum n. 1 a riddle, esp. one with a pun in its answer. 2 a hard or puzzling question or issue. How law appropriate. And, if I could be defined in any way, I think it would be as 1, though sadly, I don't really think I'm that cool.

consternation n. anxiety or dismay causing mental confusion. Also conveniently law relevant.

surveil v. not technically in the dictionary, but clearly the verb associated with surveillance n. 1 close observation or supervision, esp. of an enemy or suspected person.

vestige n. 1 a trace or piece of evidence; a sign. 2 a slight amount; a particle.

contrite adj. 1 penitent; sincerely filled with guilt, regret, etc. and desirous of making amends.

trope n. a literary or rhetorical device consisting of the figurative use of a word or phrase.

Thank you for your most worthy use of the English language! You get an 'A' for awesome.

Counting sheep

I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night and not even reading about contract law could put me out at 1 a.m.

What kind of a sign is that? That I actually like contract law?! On the plus side, it may mean that I'm not going to fail (and I mean that kind of indulgently. As if I'd actually fail) and that law school is a good place for me (as if I had any doubt).

On the con side (ha ha, the con side of contracts) , how am I supposed to get to sleep now? It's tough being too interested in what I'm learning. I could try the property book next time, but I think my general resistance to the topic may just agitate me.

Maybe I'll take to singing Twinkle Twinkle, Stars Come Down, Suzanne and You & the Candles. Just like home...

This is what law does to you

The effects of law school on one's life are legend, perhaps.

This weekend I went home and I failed to pack any clothes. All I brought with me were 4 textbooks and my laptop.

Then, on Saturday, I visited my friends and their beautiful new baby boy, and I somehow got drawn into a discussion about prior conferral of benefit ("past consideration is [usually] no consideration at all" and following my Contract Law epiphany re: Pao On v. Lau Yiu Long) and how I could never claim they owed me any money for the baby stuff I gave them for free.

And then, on Sunday night about the time I'm normally getting anxious about leaving my family behind, I started to feel anxious about the fact that I wasn't studying or doing law stuff. Not that leaving my family didn't suck as much as it usually does, it was just a little overshadowed by the mounting anxiety of first year law exams on rapid approach.

And tonight, I started work on my first law resume and my first law cover letter and I have an appointment tomorrow to have them critiqued at the career centre.

I don't know what all of this means. I just felt I should get it off my chest.

Woe be the half-caf coffee

So, about a two weeks ago I was in the grocery store scrutinizing tins of coffee. Shopping always poses a bit of a dilemna for me because at home I don't normally do the shopping. I couldn't tell you what brand of coffee we drink if my life depended on it. (Well, I could now - I asked after this episode).

There I am, puzzling about which brand I should by when an older European-type man approached me. I thought he was asking advice (and I thought, 'woe to you, because I have no idea'). But alas, it was conversation he was seeking (and perhaps more, but I try not to assume these things). After a while, I just needed to go, so I sort of cut the conversation, picked up a tin without careful attention, and dashed.

This morning I was up around 6:00, had two cups of coffee and did some reading. Then I had to have a nap. I was lying in bed and, in the absence of any kind of caffeine kick, I thought to myself, 'Did I buy decaf or something?'

Lo and behold, it's a can of half-caf. This could explain why I've been feeling a little sleepy the past couple of weeks. And I thought I was coming down with something...

Baroque & spirit

I was back in T.O. this past weekend to see my family after two weeks without being home. After a while being away was just distracting, so I was happy to be home.

Mon bonhomme and I went on Saturday night to see Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir at Trinity-St. Paul's United Church. He's been taking girls to Tafelmusik since he was a teenager (though apparently the first concert he ever went to was with Uncle Wayne. He's such a sweet nerd at times!). I'm the only one who fell for this, of course, and Shakespeare in the Park. I like the intellectual boys, I guess.

Whenever I go to Trinity-St.Paul's I think of my grandfather, George, who was ordained there years ago (he passed away when I was 18 years old). There's something I like about the fact of being in the same place as my grandfather, but separated by years.

When he died, I remember one of his oldest friends saying that he moved spirits. He was that kind of man.

If nothing else, law will be good for my vocabulary

I'm not even kidding you! People (read: lawyers and judges) use these words! This is the problem with journalism - I'd never be able to use "exhortatory" in that field.

Exhortatory: adj. of exhort: to urge or advise strongly or earnestly.

Leitmotiv: n. 2 any recurring theme, symbol, image, etc. Any kind of appropriation from other languages is fine by me, ja doch!

Detinue n. 1 a. An action to recover possession or the value of property wrongfully detained. b. The writ authorizing such action. 2 The act of unlawfully detaining personal property. [gasp! Not found in COD, but from dictionary.com. How common!]

Tortfeasor n. Law a person guilty of tort. Obviously! But it just sounds so fantastic. If I could say this word every day, I would.

That's it for now. But don't worry, there's more where that came from. Next up (as in, sometime in the future): if I can, I'll mine the judgments of my in-law Sir William Buell Richards, first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

Kevin Sylvester, Where Is Your Wisdom Now?

Kevin Sylvester is, in my opinion, the best sportscaster in all of radio and television. I admit that I don't have an extensive knowledge of sportscasters, but the reason I say that he's the best is because he's the only one I don't have the urge to turn off when the sports news comes up. I'm not one of those people who is crazy about sports. Anyway, Kevin (who is on leave from the CBC for a year at U of T as a Massey College Fellow), is a serious cyclist. One of his major irritations is people who ride their bikes on the sidewalk. In Toronto, only idiots and children ride their bikes on the sidewalk.

Now, I'm not one of those stuck up Toronto-is-the-centre-of-the-world people. I like Ottawa. I'm enjoying myself here. But I have to say that there are a lot of adults riding bikes on the sidewalks here. Who thinks it's a good idea to ride a bike in an area with heavy pedestrian traffic, like on or near a university campus with more than 31,000 students (http://www.report.uottawa.ca/2005/en/facts_figures/)?

I've almost been run over like, once a day since I got here three weeks ago, trying to avoid bikes coming in both directions. I don't ride a bike in Toronto becaue I am sort of afraid of the cars (whereas I only rode a bike when I was in Italy and the drivers are crazier there but know how to deal with bikes). There's not that much traffic in Ottawa! If you're too afraid to ride with the cars, please get off the sidewalks. It's called a sidewalk because it's that part on the SIDE of the road where you WALK.

Idiots.

I Love Katherine Barber (even with a "K")

It doesn't matter to me if I sound like a nerd. I did get in to law school, after all, and that must mean something. So I don't care if I sound like a nerd when I say: dictionaries are wonderful things. I myself am partial to the Canadian Oxford and if you don't know who Katherine is, you can google her.

A list of the words I've looked up in the past 24 or so hours, pretty much in the order I found them:

Fiat: 1 formal authorization. 2 a decree or order. [Latin, 'let it be done']. I love this word for so many reasons (but I never fail to forget its definition)!

Vitiate: 1 impair the quality or efficiency of; corrupt, debase, contaminate. 2 make invalid or ineffectual. I looked this one up to confirm that the first 't' was pronounced "sh". I was right.

Blandishment: flattery; cajolery. Who knew? McLachlin J, that's who!

Buss: n. a kiss * v.tr. kiss. Is a kiss by any other name still a kiss?

Oleomargarine: N. American dated = Margarine. Apparently there once was (and probably still is) a Canadian Statute that dealt with oleomargarine productions somewhere in Atlantic Canada.

Lodestar: 1 a star that a ship etc. is steered by, esp. the pole star. 2 a a guiding principle. b and object of pursuit.

If I ever want to become a judge, I must absolutely start work now on my own collection of obscure-ish words. But welcome to this, the first ever post of Interesting Words I've Found In Case Law, a collection of other people's obscure-ish words.

What a law degree may get you these days...

I listened to The Rain Song on the way home from FTX. It was raining.

I stopped to buy coffee at the convenience store. The clerk, once it was established that I was a law student, told me that he too had a law degree.

I momentarily wanted to kill myself. A job in a convenience store is not one of the legal careers I have hitherto considered. And, frankly, a law degree to work in a convenience store seems a little bit like overkill.

The moment passed. I presume the fellow was working in the convenience store because his law credentials are not recognized in Ontario/Canada. I have been told already, by one professor or another, to never make assumptions. For the sake of my sanity I am going to assume that he got his law degree in some foreign jurisdiction, but when I see him again I promise to ask him where he got his law degree from.