So far, on the beer-tasting front HollyCornblog’s brews are standing up very, very well … especially her smoked porter and her “Lay-Off IPA” … a name that we think (unfortunately for many) may have some legs.  There was also unanimous agreement that McNeill’s Champ Ale was NOT to our liking.  “Barnyard” was a descriptor I heard a few times!  It’s a tough group, including quite a few who like wheat beers (yech) and others who celebrate hops.  HollyCornblog and CharlieHopbrew did a nice job of trying to address a variety of tastes.  This afternoon begins round two … with Paula LR joining us and bringing tales of high school tournament basketball.  Should be very interesting.  (She officiated the Class M match-up between Campbell and Somersworth last night – for those to whom that means anything!)

So it’s March 1 … rabbit, rabbit …and here’s this morning’s poem from The Writer’s Almanac … looking ahead just a bit …

April 5, 1974
by Richard Wilbur

The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In the dull pasture where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch, and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law?
I stopped and blinked, and then I saw
A fact as eerie as a dream,
There was a subtle flood of steam
Moving upon the face of things.
It came from standing pools and springs
And what of snow was still around;
It came of winter’s giving ground
So that the freeze was coming out,
As when a set mind, blessed by doubt,
Relaxes into mother-wit.
Flowers, I said, will come of it.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just find end rhymes to be incredibly relaxing!  Maybe it’s the predictability … yeah, I do think that’s it.  Everything tied up neatly at the end of each line.  Ahhhhh.  Wonder if in times of natural crisis there is a greater tendency toward rhyme.

Saw some weird NFL news last night – like the Pats letting Matt Cassel go (so easily) and, sadly, the Eagles’ Brian Dawkins going to the Broncos and Lito Sheppard to the Jets.

On the soccer front, “The Boston Breakers are among the seven WPS teams that begin training today. The Breakers will hold their first preseason session at Harvard Stadium, where they will play their games. Their first regular-season game will be April 5 against FC Gold Pride in Santa Clara, Calif., while their home opener is April 11 against St. Louis Athletica.”

Kathleen Sebelius has been tapped as Secretary of HHS (hope this one sticks), Judd Gregg has some ‘splainin’ to do, and, in some random sampling of the news, here’s an interesting piece from the Post about how Obama reaches beyond “the bubble” – imagine a President to whom that even occurs!

“People don’t understand what it’s like to be trapped within four walls that happen to be called the White House,” said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), who has spoken with Obama about his new life. “Barack is determined not to be engulfed in the bubble, because part of his own analysis is that’s what happened to his predecessor. He knows it’s easy to become a prisoner of these things and become totally cut off.”