I’ve been wanting to check out this restaurant ever since I stopped to peer into the front windows while walking down Washington Avenue one chilly afternoon. Whimsical waves of tooling draped with white twinkle lights stretched in elegant webs across the ceiling.

Maggie, her sister, and I went out for dinner to Spill the Wine a few weeks ago. Partly to celebrate her new promotion and partly to lament our quitting French class. Tre triste!

The menu was so … purposeful? Maybe that’s not the right word, what I mean is the description of each dish was so beautifully written. It was poetry. It was also delish. I went over some of the things I still want to do before I move (Numerous stops to the Tea Garden because I don’t think they have bubble tea down there, go to the December poetry slam, buy a new suit, walk the stone arch and the ashbery bridge, take more photos, do an open mic,) and she nodded earnestly when saying she’d be my accomplice.

I finished reading the book she loaned me, Jitterbug Perfume, which was phenomenal and perfect and so smart. And told her if (when) I adopt a kitten in Sydney I’m going to name it Bingo Pajama. The most perfect cat name of all time, perhaps! 

After dinner, she drove me to my truck, and I headed to my very late hockey game where we got killed. As I was driving home over the 35W bridge, the city dazzled and winked to my left. My heart ached with the bittersweet denouement. 

I cried through Ingrid Michaelson’s chorus of Can’t Help Falling In Love. Free unabashed tears just for a moment; Maggie calls that a Cat Cry. I dialed her number because we’re in the same time zone, because I could. I thought she might be sleeping, but she answered with a question on the outcome of my game. I told her we got annihilated, but we still had fun. I thanked her again for dinner and told her I just had a Cat Cry thinking about how much I am going to miss her.  She assured me she’s still going to be here and said I am going to meet a whole new family of amazing Australian characters down there. I told her I loved her and drove home feeling light and thankful and so, so lucky.