Balboa Cafe

If the body is made with 50-60% water, mine feels as if it has been swapped with gin by day three. I imagine my head to be growing into the shape of a coupe, with olives for eyeballs. But we press on, hitting Absinthe for a happy hour, where my husband has his favorite Martini thus far, and while I love that mine is petite, and the Plymouth is delightfully cold and perfectly wet, I bemoan the lack of back on the barstool because this is the person I have become.

A quick Lyft later, the Balboa Cafe presents as the well-suited place for Martinis as big as all the babies' heads who are seated around us. Their young parents are also drinking Martinis, each drink stirred in a metal shaker, ice skating on the top.