Profile: Ann Bauer
History
- Member for
- 2 years 5 weeks
Recently written
Absinthe in the Afternoon
I was so thrilled by this afternoon's sunshine and 30-degree weather, I took a stroll through Loring Park. It was mostly deserted. But as I rounded the northwest edge, I could have sworn I saw one of the members of the Red Hot Chili Peppers smoking a cigarette outside Nick and Eddie. So I walked over to investigate.
Restaurant Wine at Retail Prices
Back in the late 70's, when I was a kid going to Groveland Elementary School, the little strip mall at the corner of Minnetonka Boulevard and Highway 101 contained a hardware store, an inky-dinky library branch, a small natural foods co-op, and a SuperValu that smelled like chicken and macaroni and cheese.
Well, who ever imagined that strip mall would some day contain a swanky little wine shop and a restaurant so popular, the parking lot would be jam-packed and you would have to park in front of the auto body shop across the street?
The answer: Chris Eriksson did.
Winter Solstice Wine
I'm not a big fan of the Big Three: Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa.
The first, frankly, bewilders me. It's a sweeping tsunami of tradition - that lynch pin of winter culture and our national economy - that is based on a clearly ridiculous myth. The fact that nations stop producing for a week and people all over the world obey the dictates of random retailers, buying things no one needs which they cannot afford. . . . I puzzle over this each and every year.
The Wine of Human Kindness
I lost a friend about a year ago. Or at least, I thought I did.
Last month she came back. It turned out she and her husband were going through a terrible time when she faded away: he'd been diagnosed with a chronic disease and had to go on disability; they were on the brink of losing their house; they pulled their son out of college because they couldn't pay the bills. She told me all this over coffee but assured me that the situation has since righted itself. Her husband is working, they renegotiated their mortgage. The kid is back in school.
Out of Our Control
So you think you have some control. But really, you don't.
One of my dearest friends in the world called this morning. She was just home from a trip to Mexico, which she took with two women she's known since grade school to celebrate their collective 50th birthday year.
She told me the weather was great. She told me there are tons of great restaurants in Cabo San Lucas. She told me her doctor called while she was there to give her the results of her mammogram: She has breast cancer.
