I texted a friend Thursday to see if she’d want to join me for a cocktail the following night at the Tiny Lounge.  The Tiny Lounge is my absolute favorite neighborhood spot for a craft cocktail, a comfortable stool, and tasty snacks.

With uber professional and passionate bartenders (no shortcuts on ingredients allowed) and no walls of contiguous giant screen TVs, it’s the antithesis of Hooters or Buffalo Wild Wings.

I knew she had just returned to Chi-town after a week-long visit with her mother in Detroit.  For her, it was a long week of getting her mother’s taxes in order, cooking, shopping, and practicing detachment.  As older relatives will do, her mom’s words carried stinging resentments and criticisms even though my friend tried very hard to listen and give her choices in daily matters.

For me, after starting the year with hardly any billable hours, I had to work the last three weekends.  I felt I deserved some time off.

My friend responded to my text within minutes, What time?

I guess Thank God it’s Friday is a universal sentiment.

Friday night is a magical time.  It’s a time when I’ve felt free from the obligations of the workweek and not yet enmeshed in weekend household chores.

On Friday, instead of being stingy or judgmental about myself, I’ll find myself in a more forgiving and generous mood.  I’ll eat or drink whatever I have a yen for and feel okay about spending a little money.

Before meeting my friend at 6:00, I stopped at the Cash Station.

I took time to apply mascara and lipstick, which I don’t normally do, but it was Friday night, and I was taking myself OUT.

At 6:00, I walked off the street, up three stairs, and into the narrow room.  (They don’t call it TINY for nothing, I’ suppose.)

My friend was already sitting on a stool at the bar.  She sat behind a cordial glass filled with a light, clear liquid.  She was entranced by the sights and smells of Friday Night Live.

St. Germain, she said, and offered me a sip.  Smells wonderful, she added

She proceeded to introduce me to Jessie, the bartender.  School teacher by day, bar tender par excellence by night.

We watched the silhouette of his shadow flicker and dance against the grass cloth wallpaper behind the bar. He mixed two cocktails, one in each hand, in chilled metal shakers.  Like Balanchine choreography, the sight was both masculine and ethereal.

We moved to a counter-high table near the window while it was still an option.  Within the next hour, the place would fill up to welcome a mixed-crowd of Friday night revelers; hipsters, and middle-aged women ready to observe this quasi-public ritual.

We perused the menu, which featured both snacks (When did cheese curds become a cool menu item?) and signature drinks. Ah, variety is wonderful, but I felt compelled to stick with their Glass Sipper, my fav.

We drank slowly, savoring the bouquet of the lemon peel, marveling at how long the ice seemed to retain its cube shape and not melt.  While waiting for the attentive but not intrusive waitress, to bring our curds and flatbread, we sipped our cocktails and toyed with our tumblers of water.  And we emptied ourselves.

We shared our frustrations, our disappointments of the week, how we tried to keep perspective and not let things bother us; how we tried to take the high road.  We talked about what we were conscious of losing sleep over and confessed that we expected to sleep late the next morning.

It wasn’t the alcohol’s power, not directly, that felt so freeing.  It was the sense of making a confession. Maybe a Glass Sipper or two, helped facilitate this level of sharing.

The most important things, though, is having a good friend to witness your feelings and being in a public place where you can see other friends are doing the same.  It’s a narrow territory planted under the flag of no judgment.

Having a Friday night cocktail with a good friend – at the TINY LOUNGE — is no small thing.