Date Night! At night, this time, a rather last minute affair, and quite nice at that. We went for al fresco casual, in Dinkytown, at Kafe 421, so I kept the bling-age to a minimum, just this funky ring I got for a song a couple of weeks ago (sorry, Maven, I can't do the "oh!" naughty face even half as well as you do, you own it, baby, you own it...). We scored a lovely sidewalk table for scoping the university scene. Purple hair, beards, combat boots, and pierced faces are still the college-usual, I'm glad to see. Made me feel not-quite-old (even though I soooo am, I know). Kafe 421's Monday-night special - half-price bottles of wine - does not suck, and the food is terrific to boot. We opted for a pasta tossed with chicken and a verde (green herb) sauce, as well as a crispy tilapia sandwich with radishes, arugula, and a killer homemade tartar sauce.

Afterward, doing our usual post-din drive, we accidentally stumbled upon several different riverside spots with limited views - and lots of gawkers trying for pics - of the I-35W bridge collapse. Chilling and devastatingly sad, to say the least. It hardly seems like it happened here, in Minneapolis, in a place we've all been a hundred times before. Sigh.