When I visited some chosen family members this winter, one of them blurted out that I should feel energized because, “after all, don’t you drink like five cups of coffee a day?” I laughed and said that while staying with them, I had never had more than two. He came to his five-cups-per-day belief because I reheat my coffee in the microwave a lot. I guess I’m a slow coffee drinker.
When I was 7 and 8 years old, I would sometimes spend summer days with my Papaw Jim. He would take me to McDonalds, and I would order a Happy Meal while he would order a coffee. Sure enough, I would finish my meal way before he was finished with his coffee, and I would feel so bored.
“I’ve got just a little left,” he would say, with the cup half full.
“Just a little left.”
“Just a little left.”
This was such a marker of my summer. There was hardly ever just a little left.
I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
–Renee Roederer
Smuggling Grace 