shades of brown

My coffee cup at home, a small unevenly browned one, I brought to the office to replace the one I use there, which was not as brown and whose circumference was bigger. That means the coffee to sugar to hot water ratio I follow at home and the one in the office are different. So I don't always get that 'sipa' I want out of each cup. To standardize, I did what I did, because I have another mug just like it, also at home.

My small coffee jar at home, a thoroughly green one, I left there. It comes with a small spoon, smaller than a teaspoon, which, when heaped with coffee--that heap mixed with two heaps of sugar and hot water near the brim--concocted the exact caffeine 'sipa' that logs me out of afternoon stupor and early morning daze.

Such a small cup. Form a C with your right hand, open it up a little, and that's the cup's circumference. It's height is just three-fourths the length of my hand. So much for so little.

When I was an undergrad, morning cups of coffee defined the house hierarchy. On the breakfast table, where I fixed the family coffee, colors said who was who: pink was my mom, blue was my stepdad, and I was yellow. I remember abandoning my assigned cup; my brother had poured something on it, turning it to the color of shit.

And the shit that I take from morning till night has significantly darkened with time. Deep, uneven dark brown.