The Official Seaggie Guide to Summer Vacations

You may or may not believe this, but my family has had the same pet seagull since I was maybe nine or ten. His name is Seaggie, and we met him while throwing fries in the air on Crescent Hill, overlooking the city. For as long as I can remember, Seaggie has been a total alcoholic, with the occasional drug problem. In short, he's a major party-animal, and nowadays he really only shows up while we are on vacation. You know how most of the time, people go on vacation for a bit, then go back to their normal lives? I guess you could say that Seaggie is on permanent vacation. He's a total mess, but he's pretty fun to party with when you're off of home-turf.

It's not a surprise to see Seaggie at any vacation destination the family chooses. He's enjoyed frothy Guiness with us in Ireland, taken wild stoned train-rides through Holland with the fam, and has even kept it dirty in the South with me a couple of times.

I've been really busy this month, so I asked my good pal Seaggie to dictate some important vacation tips to you, my faithful reader (I had to type it out for him, his talons aren't very effective on a keyboard):

Vacation Tip #1: Vacations should be like a fine mixture of your birthday and happy hour. If you don't drink, it's time to start. Let's be honest: here is really no way you're going to relax fully if you don't get a little help from the insides of a bottle. More importantly, it's really crucial to realize that you are visiting somewhere where nobody knows who you are. You're never going to see these people again, so why not make the most of it? For example, have you ever wanted to be the duke of a small country that also has a fondness for polo (the horse-riding sport and the cologne) and has the world's largest collection of Precious Memories figurines? In a place where nobody knows any better, you can be whoever you want to be! Later in the night, while still in character, you can make out with somebody's wife and break onto the roof of the bar, and when you leave to go home for the evening, people will smile and shake their heads and think to themselves "That crazy foreigner...".

Vacation Tip #2: You should be spending your vacation time in the exact same way you would spend your time if you won the lotto. To put it plainly, you should be throwing your money around like an Appalachian Powerball winner. Go ahead, be an idiot with your credit card.... That's why the Visa gave you the card in the first place. Sure, you've got responsibilities back home, things like "rent" and "bills", but those things are miles and miles away. Your spending is only halted by your credit limit, so go on... Give that bum on the street a whole dollar, mega-size your soda at the movie theatre, and buy yourself the non-generic cigarettes for once. Do you want lobster for dinner every night? Of course you do. Do you want lobster for dinner every night, along with rare Asian massage-beef? Even better. How's about you enjoy the meal whilst getting a massage yourself? You see where this is going.

Vacation Tip #3: Do nothing and everything at the same time. When you get back from vacation, people are going to ask what you did. You should be able to shrug your shoulders and say: "mm, nothing". Then, you should break out into a million stories about how you saw your favorite college friend, and saw Mr Dress-up's trunk (for real), and went in the most hilarious vintage store, and hung out with your Dad and his old band-buddies in the tiniest town ever, and laid on the beach for hours, and saw all kinds of wacky folk-art, and watched massive vacuum cleaners suck the garbage off of Toronto's streets after the Pride Parade, and had the most fun at the museum, and saw the raddest sunsets every night. You know, the actual main point of vacations is to gather stories to tell later in life, like when you're drunkenly trying to get everyone's attention, or when you're eighty-four, and are at the bus stop with a bunch of strangers.

Here's some photos from this year's summer vacation to Ontario:
































~sarah p. (and Seaggie)

p.s. Guess who is going away again next weekend? Yep, you guessed it.
p.p.s. Guys! I hope you're having a fun summer too!

Chicha Morada

Oh, hello there. You guys probably forgot I existed, and the truth is, I kinda forgot I existed too.

I'm here today to discuss this Venezuelan powdered drink I bought when Dylan took me to the flea market (side note- I love the flea market so much!!!!). Anyway, so there we are, wading though the grandfatherly types that hang out at the Blackfoot Flea Market (you know, the type that can build a proper shed, and wear suspenders almost every day). We'd just finished off a whole mess of tacos ('mess', by the way, is the proper pluralization of 'tacos', as 'gaggle' is to 'geese'.... Just a note for all of you kids taking the S.A.T.s this year), when we stumbled upon a teeny Latin grocery store. Now, due to the fact that we already had a taste for jazzed-up Latin food, we decided to give the shelves a bit of a gander. Dylan suggested that Mexican soda is the nectar of the gods, and boy, was he right. He bought some rice and beans, and we were on our way out, when I noticed a package.... Purple drink.

I brought the package home, and honestly forgot about it for a couple of days. However, last night, when I ran out of lemonade, I pulled out the package, poured the water and powder into a jug, and stirred it until it looked like the most deliciously grapey beverage ever. I chucked the package away, and poured myself a glass. I got busy doing something (not too sure what it was, but due to the time frame, it probably involved 'The Facts of Life', I tend to get caught up in the sexual tension between Jo and Blair), and didn't get around to tasting the juice until about half an hour later. On the first sip, I realized that the flavor was certainly not grape at all. Matter of fact, I really couldn't tell what kind of flavor I was dealing with... A non-grape purple is usually synonymous with some sort of blueberry, or blackberry, or wildberry, or even boysenberry flavor, but this stuff just kinda tasted like the Kool-Aid Man mated with a Venezuelan prostitute... Cheap and perfumey, it tasted exactly like the scent of my favorite thrift store (kind-of a good smell when you're dealing with old clothes, but perhaps not a good beverage flavor?).

I pulled the package out from the garbage to see if I could get any clues as to the dark liquid in my glass. In the corner was a small lime, and around the lime appeared to be some purple tiles. I got online and started googling some of the words on the package. At first, I searched the brand, 'Le Negritas', which has an overtly racist mascot, a slave woman. Didn't really find anything that wasn't in Spanish, so I looked up the other words on the package. A traveler's website confirmed my worst fears: those purple tiles weren't just background decoration, 'Chicha Morada' is an unfermented specialty beverage of Central and South America, made from motherfucking corn.

So, now I'm stuck looking a whole jug of purple corn-water in my fridge, and all because I couldn't resist the lure of 'purple drink'. When will I learn?

~sarah p.

p.s. Did you guys know that I'm going on vacation to Toronto at the end of the month? It's truuuue! Toronto friends, please get in touch.