The Linden Hills

Here I am with an hour and a quarter to pass in the Minneapolis neighborhood of Linden Hills. It's certainly one of the Twin Cities' best neighborhoods. Grab a million dollars and you probably have enough money to buy any number of houses here! Linden Hills all centers on a proper and charming neighborhood commercial district with some very good restaurants, a nice size hardware store, and a genuinely lovely library. Real live lakes, our signature city feature, are at farthest a short walk away. The food co-op, a place where any human in the history of the species, endowed with enough cash, could learn to happily shop, was a victim of its own success and moved to bigger digs just barely out of the neighborhood, but it remains close enough.

Everything is sunny and beautiful here, full of trees and hills and charming houses and healthy people. The last crime committed in Linden Hills was in the nineties. The streets are clean but not suburban, and the town is free of toxic waste, plastic, harmful glutens, hatred, and unkind dogs. Besides English, everyone here speaks French. It is an American fantasy town. The Go-Go's come to mind "I bet you'd live here if you could and be one of us." I suppose that goes for my wife and I, though it's a bit alarming when I so clearly spell it out for myself, as a kind of upper class neighborhood hiding in the ancient mythical veneer of a middle class one.

On the down side Linden Hills has no coffee shop! Or, well, they have three coffee shops, but not one of the good ones, which are no longer rare in the twin cities so there's no excuse. I'm actually writing from one of these mediocre coffee shops, a regional chain no less, because Linden Hill's lovely library has the audacity to be closed at 11:30 in the morning. So there's a second strike. And come to think of it, all these women of leisure talking loudly in French are kind of getting to me too.

That's three. I guess no place is perfect.