I wrote the following this past Tuesday, the day of the New Hampshire primary.
Lest readers of my blog think I am some hopelessly disengaged shallow oh-what-sweeps-will-I-enter-next type, think again. I don’t post about current events or big issues (poverty, income disparity, spider veins – okay, just kidding on that last one) because I view this sweepstaking pursuit as escapist and separate and I plan to keep it as far away as I can from the mess out there. But please do not for a second conclude that I am not apoplectically optimistic that the Democrats will recapture the White House in 2008 and that on the evening of the Iowa caucuses last week and now this afternoon as I type, seeing Drudge’s flash-bulletin siren (red, blue, red, blue, red, blue) and the headline EPIC TURNOUT FOR DEMS – We Are Out of Ballots, that I was not feeling that we are in the midst of a shift, a legitimate, unstoppable turning away from the dispiriting tendencies that have dominated this repugnant administration.
I am beginning to feel hopeful again, and it feels good.
Yesterday I entered a sweeps for three nights in Paris that’s sponsored by Chambord. I don’t believe I’ve ever done this before, gone out and bought a sweep’s sponsor’s product immediately after entering a sweeps. But clicking around the Chambord website got me thinking about that sweet black rasberry liqueur and remembering the time almost 15 years ago that I sipped Chambord at dusk at the edge of Chateau Chambord. It was closed when we arrived, so we could not visit it or the grounds.
Yesterday afternoon I marched to the liquor store across the street and bought Chambord as well as an apple schnapps (not sour apple, by the way) and last evening I made a Candy Apple Martini, a dangerously delicious concoction consisting of one part vodka, one part Chambord and one part apple schnapps. Dangerous in that it would be easy to down four before the first two took effect. So, fais gaffe if you indulge.
To enter, click HERE. One entry. The sweeps closes March 15.
The Ineligibles: Residents of Tennessee, Maryland and California.