Drinking to DIstraction?

An Imperial Stout or two needed for this election cycle!

While I was trying to get started on a book for book club about Lafayette, the Frenchman who was a hero of the Revolutionary War, I was distracted by the news of the craziest election cycle that I can remember.

But what I really needed was a little something to distract me from the election news--from the same old faces (not mentioning any names!) and repeating rhetoric of the POTUS candidates, who have almost nothing new to say. And the primaries are just getting started!

Even though I am not drinking much beer this year, the other night I pulled out a potent Imperial Stout (10.5 ABV), pouring as black as ink. And I felt like I needed it.

The book we are reading (Lafayette in the Somewhat United States) about the earliest times in our country reminds me that freedom was not easily won. It could easily have turned out differently, especially without the help of France--and very little was agreed upon in those early "congressional" meetings or among the political class of the day.

I was glad to learn more about this French hero who was so celebrated back in the day, but the author adds her own snarky, irreverent thoughts on the subject--which were quite funny at first and then started to annoy me--as her biased voice seemed more about gratuitously shocking the reader than presenting a fresh look at this time in history.

We've all experienced gratuitous sex in novels and movies. This was gratuitous snark!

The book also made me reflect that it was something of a miracle that our country ever became the United States (at least in the 18th century); and it probably cannot be so easily destroyed by any one prospective leader ... whatever happens in November.

 Hopefully I will not have to drown myself in booze in order to get through this election cycle...