Mediocrity Night at Al Vento

Last week we went to a restaurant called Al Vento for date night. We walked the few blocks-- the evening was unseasonably warm and misty. The type of weather that brings to mind the Pacific Northwest, inevitably causing Minnesotans to remark "if this were as bad as winter got, I would never think of leaving." Slug weather. We were celebrating the fact that I am once again employed, and trying to grab a little time before the onslaught of holidays and snow.

We have been to Al Vento twice before, and have found their food tasty and nicely presented. They are a recent addition to the neighborhood, having moved into a storefront on the corner of 50th Street E and 34th Ave S that was vacated when another restaurant, Marimar, closed their doors earlier this year. They are hoping to serve the same type of cuisine to the same people, for slightly lower prices. I wish them luck. Unfortunately, on this visit our experience was less than pleasant, due entirely to a waiter who was not up to the task. The food was good, the wine was excellent, and we will certainly go back. We would, however, wince to find ourselves in that particular server's section. Still and all, it is the only restaurant of distinction in the area, and if you come to visit I will probably take you there.

Why Would I Do Such a Thing?

In the past I've resisted the urge to create a blog because I'm relentlessly ordinary. The blogs that I most enjoy are ones that have well-documented reasons to exist-- the life of someone working in a library, for example. What is unique about my existance AND interesting? What could I write about day after day? A list forms in my mind of possibilities:

1. Being thirty. Pros: I would only have to write about it for a year. Cons: What's to say? it feels a little like 29, and a little like I suspect 31 will feel.
   
2. My upcoming marriage in July 05. (My wedding dress is being shipped even as we speak, thanks to two fabulous fairy godmothers in Chicago!) An entertaining topic, as far as I'm concerned, but probably not so to anyone other than the womenfolk in my family and my wonderful future mother-in-law. And my fiance'. He swears he's interested in the minutia of our wedding, bless his big handsome heart.
   
3. A fan blog dedicated to my mother, Birdie the Ephemeral Florist. (twigsandbranches.blogspot.com) Again, great topic, but not very universal. . .
   
4. A chronicle of the fascinating lives of my pets, Wiley, Maisie, and Django. Ummm, nah. They're great and all, but they are private creatures, and probably don't like the idea of my spying on them in the backyard or litterbox.
   
5. My part-time job as a seller of footware in at a local outdoors store. Hunh. I might draw a strange sort of readership with that one.
   
6. My neighborhood. Hmmm. I live in area of Minneapolis, Minnesota, called Nokomis East. Our northern boundary is Minnehaha Creek. To the south is Highway 62 , known to natives as "the Crosstown," to the east Hiawatha Avenue (E. Nokomis is adjacent to an area know as Longfellow, where many of the streets are named for places mentioned in the poem 'Song of Hiawatha') To the west, as you may have guessed, is Lake Nokomis.
   

Okay, so maybe I COULD write about my neighborhood. In fact, it would actually give me a reason to visit some of the dive bars and goofy storefronts that I've never had a reason to venture into before. There's a bowling alley down the street just begging to be explored. The RAIN in SPAIN stays MAINly in the. . .you get the idea.

Of course, I suspect that the rest of my life will creep into these posts. My perspective as a thirty year old, soon-to-be married, pet-lover with an awsome present and future family can't be set aside. I'm sure that even my observations on footware and the people who love it will surface from time to time. I'm not even going to fight it too hard. You have to grow where you're planted, right? And I am, after all, planted on the banks of Minnehaha Creek.