Hot Apple Cider

Whew, it was cold out there on my walk home! On days like today back when I lived in the little house on Polo Road with Miss J., she would get out a big pot and line the bottom of it with Red Hots and fill it up with apple cider and put it on the stove to simmer and melt the Red Hots. I'd be in my room writing and she'd be in her room writing and we'd tell ourselves that we'd work for an hour, have some cider, and then go back to work. Usually, we'd actually do that. But sometimes, we'd sit around holding the warm cups in our hands, talking about literary theory or boys or the crazy antics of our friends. I used to walk to the little house on Polo Road, too, with about as much enthusiasm as I do to this place, which is to say, not much. But I'd come up the back yard and see the warm glow of the light in the kitchen and Miss J. at the sink or the stove, and it would make me glad to be home. Here, when I get home, the house is dark and I unlock the door to the smell of an unclean litter box. But as I stumble in and search for the light, I hear the dull, quick thuds of a tail smacking against some piece of furniture someplace in the darkness, and then, there, in the middle of the room, blocking my path, is a girl happy to see me. She doesn't make me warm cider, because she lacks opposable thumbs, but she makes me glad to be home, just the same.