We detected a pattern.

Two days, two late breakfasts, the kind of late breakfast that borders on dinner. Short waits in the melting humidity. Small crowds of locals, tolerant of the sketchy service provided by the by-any-standards-unhappy wait staff.

And the menus. The copy and paste dill onion bread and pink lemonade. The signature strawberry butter and buttermilk biscuits that found their way into kitchen after kitchen.

But most of all, our conversations: poignant and sincere. Thoughts and phrases; facial expressions and laughter that moved between us in an ether of understanding. Something I then looked forward to upon waking and something I now miss back in my quiet solitude.