Balboa Surprises

I met Dutch at Velo Rouge today, one of his favorite beer-and-study places (it would have been mine, too, if it had been here ten years ago) and it is just far enough away from home where taking the bus is usually the preferred mode home, but walking wouldn't necessarily kill us.

Tonight, our tummies were full of pizza and the evening was not balmy, but it wasn't arctic, either and neither of us wanted to spend any more time on a bus, so we decided to walk the entire 11 short blocks, plus 1.75 long blocks home.  I wanted to show him a mysterious sushi place that I had noticed on the 600 block a few weeks ago-- it consisted entirely of 7 chairs, around a tiny counter, with obsessive handwritten notes all over the walls, and no sign at all, and an old man making sushi, in a storefront that could be no wider than 9 feet.  My curiosity was piqued.  On our way there, we stuck our heads in a number of sushi places, and a store, that at first glance, I thought was a pet store, because there were two cats.  It was open and I went in and started talking to the proprietess, a woman named Leslie.  I gathered that Frankenart Mart was a gallery/performance space.  This month's theme was "dream job." The smell of the place took me right to Hippy Liesa's old studio in Aptos, which was also a place full of strange homemade objects and furry creatures.  She also told me about the Sushi Nazi next door, the old man we were seeking, and how he made people follow rules and that if he didn't know you, then you wouldn't get the mystical delicacies he made for the people he knew, you'd just get the "menu" items. 

I am not sure we will go visit the sushi dojo, but I want to return and play at Frankenart Mart again.