Ff. are BACK (from Florida)

WE ARE BAAAAAACK from hiatus.

Summer vacation is upon us and Frankenstein Friends started it off in the most appropriate way possible – – a trip to Florida!

We apologize for the lag in updates, but we were on vacation. You can wait.

In order to try and write-off our trip to Florida as a business expense, I’m going to give you some useful tips that I learned during our trip. I think I may call them “Trip Tips” – – yes, I will call it that.

Although the general consensus seems to be that Florida is an absolutely hellish place to live year round (Sorry, Floridians), it is an optimal vacation spot.

They are home to the happiest place on Earth. (( Do I need to say it? DisneyWorld. I’m talking about DISNEYWORLD. You wish, Universal. )) They also have Universal Studios which is cool, but not DisneyWorld. And, now, they have Harry Potter World. I haven’t been there, but, if given the opportunity, I would pack up my entire life and leave my family behind to blindly move there. What I wouldn’t do for a Butterbeer.  And, obviously, they have glorious white sand beaches! So soft and wonderful that Bull Dog Corner hated walking on them. ( Some people just have to find fault in everying. This cake is too good. I hate it. ) >>Trip Tip #1: If you don’t like soft wonderful things on your feet, wear shoes! They make for cool tan lines!<<

When traveling, I’m usually a city girl. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Paris – – just send me to a big city to wander around aimlessly and eat and I’m happy. But, after going to the beach for the first time in 7 years, I was reminded how nothing reboots the soul like the beach. A weekend is wonderful. A week if you are lucky. Two weeks might be fun. No longer than 15 days – – get out of Florida immediately before you regret it!

Now, because I usually prefer to vacation to places that have some sort of significance in Jim Carrey’s career, we traveled to Seaside, Florida. Also known as the backdrop for the 1998 hit film The Truman Show. Starring Jim Carrey. It’s a picturesque beach town filled with rich people and their obnoxious 14 year olds that out number everyone else by about 8 to 1. >>Trip Tip #2: Most of the time, this is tolerable, but Saturday and Sunday night during Memorial Day weekend will bring out the agoraphobe in all of us. Steer clear! Maybe I should end all my tips in rhymes….<<

Since it’s everyone’s desire to know enough about our lives to be able to successfully live vicariously through us, I’ll walk you through a day at the beach.

A typical day during our vacation went as follows:

6:45 // Wake up to the sounds of E going to sit alone on the porch (already fully dressed) to wait for someone else to wake up.

7:00 // Go into Seaside proper with E to get a coffee from Amavida Coffee – a free trade organic shop that had everything I wanted except 2% milk. >>Trip Tip #3: Bring your own milk to Amavida – unless you want to stay trim with skim! Which is gross.<< Take my whole/skim milk latte to walk around the town, grab a muffin, enjoy the quiet, and draw Adventure Time characters until the bookstore opened.

8:30 // Sun Dog Books. A small, but well stocked bookstore that could keep me busy for hours. Go to there, but they may charge you different prices for the same thing depending on the day. Small price to pay for a cool bookstore. Literally.

9:00 // Back to the house to see what other Frankenstein Friends are awake. Put on sun block for an hour.

10:00 // BEACH. Beach activities included but were not limited to:

• Frisbee.
• Unsuccessful beach ball games.
• Dolphin sightings.
• Jellyfish sightings.
• Destroying the homes of innocent crabs.
• Unsuccessful sand castle building.
• Popsicle eating.
• Sand burials. ( That sounds gloomier than it is. )
• Unsuccessful boogie boarding.
• Standing in the ocean.

12:30 // Back to the house to play one or more of the following games while eating lunch and drinking Pina Coladas.

• Family Feud
• Who Wants To Be A Millionaire
• Blokus

>>Trip Tip #4: Always buy frozen bacardi – – only because they sponsor Ff. … plus other drinks stink!<< We also ate ridiculous amounts of hummus and Zapp’s Chips. >>Trip Tip #5: Mix Jalepeno and Spicy Cajun Crawtators flavors for chips with zip (or zapp)!<<

12:30 // Alternate possibility // Stay at the beach alone to take a walk and forget where your stuff is and walk several miles more than you intended while realizing everything on the beach looks the same and you may never find your way home. >>Trip Tip #6: Don’t go on walks.<<

4:00 // Back to the beach.

6:00 // FOOD. When not cooking at the house, we ate at the following establishments which I will now vaguely rate for you:

• Seagrove Village Market – Fried Oyster Poboys ( 5 out of 5 )
• Hurricane’s Oyster Bar – Raw Oysters (2 out of 5) >>Trip Tip #7: Why eat raw when you can eat fried? It’s to die-d for.<<
• Goatfeather’s – Soft-shell crab sandwiches & PoBoys (5 out of 5) >>Trip Tip #8: A poboy has 2 whole crabs on it and a sandwich has 1. Pay the extra $2 and get your gluttony on.<<
• Blue Mountain Beach Ice Cream – Gold Medal Ribbon (5 out of 5) – Service (0 out of 5) – *Entertainment value (5 out of 5) >>Trip Tip #8: Don’t bother asking any questions about the flavors, they are all just chocolate & vanilla. Different names taste the same.<<
• Pickle’s – Turkey Burger and Fried Pickles  (3.75 out of 5)
• Pizza by the Sea – Rabbit Food and Great White Veggie Pizza  (4.5 out of 5)