The Ends Justify the Means

This afternoon I got an e-mail from Emily while I was at work suggesting we go out to dinner tonight and then to IKEA to shop for new deck furniture. Knowing my distaste for shopping, she knew the best way to woo me into this errand was to agree to eat at Dominguez Family Restaurant.

I loooooooooooooove Dominguez! But man was it crowded tonight. Maybe it was all the white people in Noko (downtown East Nokomis neighborhood) who wanted to celebrate Cinco de Mayo, even though they weren't sure what is was all about. Or maybe it's because because DOMINGUEZ JUST GOT AWARDED BEST TACOS IN THE TWIN CITIES!!! (open letter to The Harvest Moon Lover: Those all caps were for you).

So instead, we decided to go eat at Al Vento, across the street.

We struck gold, as bottles of wine are 1/2 on Mondays at Al Vento (as it seems is the case in most nice Minneapolis restaurants). So we drank a few glasses with our dinner (which was awesome) and they recorked the bottle and let us take the rest home.

Emily and I had a great time during dinner even as we scolded ourselves for never straying from routine and therefore only eating at Al Vento once in the past. Sure, Netflix, Parkway Pizza, and Longfellow Grill are great, but we have been missing out.

During the course of dinner, I spilled marinara sauce on my shirt and Emily got olive oil on hers. So we decided to skip IKEA and go back home so we could put stain stick on our clothes. Live it up yall!

But we REALLY want new deck furniture for nights like tonight when the weather in awesome. So do we regret how off track our plans went?

Not one bit. Emily said, "We can always have a picnic on the deck tomorrow night if the weather is good." I don't know if tonight can be called a perfect night. But for a Monday, it was pretty awesome.