St. Anthony, Minnesota

My childhood friend and I have exchanged the same birthday card since 1979. I know I’ll hear from her in March, and a card exchange at Christmas, but only occasionally during the rest of the year. 

So, when I saw a text come through from her last week I was delighted, but curious as to what she had to say. She told me about a new luxury apartment complex that was built in St. Anthony, Minnesota.

The back story is my mother, Ruby, lived in the house my dad built, the house where I grew up in NE Minneapolis, for several years after my father passed away. Eventually she moved in to a townhouse, not more than a mile away from the house. It was newly-built, and well-built, small complex of townhomes, and a wonderful place for her to live for the next 20 years. After the townhouse, she moved into a senior apartment complex and enjoyed a few years there before she died in 2009.

For twenty years we would visit my mother at her townhouse in St. Anthony, across from the old Apache Plaza Mall, which is no longer standing. Office units and strip malls with a big grocery store took over the space.

Diane, my friend, texted to tell me about a new luxury apartment building that was built in that space across the street from where my mother lived in the townhouse. And she went on to write, “I thought you’d like the name…The Ruby Apartments!”

What fun! It made me smile. 

And I like the logo…the capitol R in Ruby has a rectangular ruby stone as part of the letter.