Steph and I went out for our first sushi dinner sometime during the summer of 2001. I don’t know if it says more about us or about sushi, but we hadn’t gone back for more until Friday night. I’ve been too busy since then to tell the tale, but here it is.

We’ve lived near a Japanese community (and when I say near I mean less than a quarter mile) for a year and a half now, and the only time we’ve gone to eat in Japantown, we had Hawaiian food. Go figure. So when Sushi Maru opened up, we thought it was worth a try. That was a few months ago. I have no idea why we picked Friday night to actually go. It’s just one of those things that you do because you’ve been putting it off: clean the garage, write to grandma, eat sushi.

I’m not a big fan of sushi. I tend to like to eat fish hot, rather than cold, and cooked rather than raw. So sushi is basically the opposite of what I like about fish. Nonetheless, Sushi Maru has something other restaurants don’t: a conveyor belt. And a conveyor belt in a restaurant says one thing to me: Resistance is Futile.

The bar in the center of the restaurant’s single room is surrounded by a small conveyor belt made up of rounded, brown interlocking tiles. It’s about four inches wide; just wide enough to carry a small plate. Luckily, the Japanese seem to like everything being very small and efficiently packaged (Ever seen a manga comic book? Sony Vaio laptop? The Prime Minister of Japan?). The conveyor belt quietly scuttles along on a platform raised about four inches above the bar, carrying small plates of sushi-related goodies past the patrons who have chosen to shun the booths around the outside of the room.

The thing that wasn’t immediately apparent to me was the pricing scheme. Maybe you’ve been to lots of sushi bars, and this is old hat to you. Well, that’s fine for you, but I’m new to this. The only major distinction I had seen between any of the plates that passed me was one particular plate with a little American flag on the end of a toothpick sticking out of one of the sushi rolls. The flag had the word “SPICY” written in black on both sides. I asked Steph if that was some kind of foreign policy statement. She wasn’t sure.

Amongst the raw eel and tuna were four plates with quickly-made paper signs on them. The signs read, in order, “1.75”, “2.75”, “3.75”, and “4.75.” I figured that they must be the prices of the sushi, but the Price Plates were all next to each other, and they were all empty, so I sat for a minute and tried to figure out exactly how a “1.75” on one plate was supposed to help me figure out what the plate trucking around the bar a minute later was going to cost me. Then it dawned on me. Colors! The cheapest plate was primarly white. Then the next one up had a yellow rim around it. Dark blue was next, followed by a maroon plate for the most expensive sushi. When I actually thought about it, it made the most sense, since the only thing you’ve got left after eating the sushi is the plate, so how else are they supposed to charge you when you’re picking plates off a conveyor belt and eating whatever you want? Those Japanese folks are clever, I’ll give them that.

I think my favorite part of the meal was the aspect of being slowly introduced to your next meal. I picked cucumber wraps for my first plate (like a sushi wrap without actual sushi in it. Yes, I’m a wimp.), and as the other potential meals went by, I eyed them as a hunter might eye his prey. I found myself speaking to the plates as they passed.

“Gee, you’re a colorful one, aren’t you?”
“You frighten me. Not a chance.”
“I’ll see you next time around, Egg-with-sticky-rice. But only one of us will come out alive.”

I shouldn’t have been so haughty. Egg-with-sicky-rice was a formidable opponent. Scrambled eggs cut precisely and served cold over rice with a seaweed tie-around is an odd meal for a kid from Iowa. It’s just something I’m beginning to understand. I mean, hand me some korv and I’m right at home. Steph pointed out that I ought to dip more things in soy sauce, and I did, and she was right. It’s like their ketchup.

The Conveyor Belt of Fate brought me a spungy vanilla cake-like thing for dessert. It was foreign, but sweet. And nothing sweet can be all too foreign to an American’s taste buds, can it? I enjoyed it greatly. I washed it all down with a glass of Sprite and about three ounces of sake in a tiny little cup.

I’m going to have to go in there some day soon and take pictures.

Who knew? They even have a sound clip. I’ll never look at fish the same way.

I was going to write about it, but Steph already did, so head on over there and check it out.

I’ve had the extreme pleasure recently of communicating with many close friends. Last week I had phone conversations that were each over an hour long with three different friends (one in Colorado and two in Minnesota) on three different nights. Crazy! But frankly, I love that stuff. Keeping up with buddies is always a very good thing, so, hey, if you haven’t called, now’s a fine time. And no, I’m not posting my number on the Net. Email me.

Anyhow (Segue!), not all the recent conversations I’ve had with old buddies have been via phone. It’s a little-known fact that Neal and I chat probably every other night on AIM if we’re both around. It’s good stuff.

I ran into another friend of mine a couple nights ago on AIM. A man by the name of Aaron Hintgen. Many of you don’t know him since he didn’t go to Bethel (though he was there often times). He worked alongside me for Apple both as a Campus Rep and as a sales guy at the Apple Store in the Mall of America. It had been months since I had talked with him, and many more months since I had seen him (I honestly don’t know how long it has been) and he just popped up on AIM asking how I’ve been. So we chatted. And for a little while I felt like I hadn’t missed out on as much as I really have. You know, that “in the loop” feeling. The illusion of closeness chatting can sometimes create is wonderful one. 🙂

Oh, he’s in a band called Rocket Science. And they just put up a website with downloadable samples of their music. (Check out Drain Pipe. Children of the 80s will love it.) And they’ll be at the Nav Talent Show at the Coffman Memorial Union October 30th for those of you who can figure out where the Coffman Memorial Union is. So now you know, and knowing is half the something.

Break a leg, Aaron!

My friend Mike Zornek whipped something up that I think you’ll all enjoy. So, enjoy!

It has been awhile since I’ve done an audio blog. I figure it’s easiest to just put up a link to the MP3 file itself and not mess with plugins.

Cleaning the Oven (0:51)

I followed a link off my friend Tim’s blog just now to an online test that claims be able to estimate the date of your death by the answers you give to a few questions. Apparently I’m going to die on Christmas Day in 2059, and there’s a 33% chance it’ll be from cancer. The spooky thing about that is that many of my family members who have passed on died in December, and several were actually from cancer. Odd.

But that’s not what I’m writing about (although I want to know all your results in the Peanut Gallery). I’m writing because part of the test asked how many pushups I could do without stopping.

Fifteen.

I’m such a wimp. Okay, so at number fifteen Henson ran under me and made me laugh, but I didn’t have it in me to go for sixteen, so I quit right then. Seriously, my arms still hurt. I have no upper-body strength whatsoever.

I want you all, right now, to get down on the floor and try this. Don’t do any girl pushups either. (Unless you’re a girl.) You’ve gotta start with straight arms, and feel the floor with the tip of your nose before you come back up. I don’t care if you’re in a library or whatever. Just do it. No one will stop you, because you won’t last that long. Plus, anyone who does pushups in public is probably too scary to approach. So do it! Let’s see how y’all do.