Three Beautiful Things 04/21/15: Pip at the Body Shop, Penne, They Flee from Me

1.  I took the car down to the Captiol Cadillac Collision Center and Kevin took some photos, told me the Sube looked good for being ten years old, and went in the back to draw up the estimate.  While waiting, I read more of Great Expectations and enjoyed Pip's elaborations upon earlier descriptions and tales about the Pocket household as well as his growing distaste for housemate Bentley Drummle.

2.   It's not that often that the Deke has a specific dinner request, but tonight she wanted penne pasta with olive oil, garlic, basil, and Parmesan cheese all mixed together in a bowl.  I hadn't fixed this before and so I asked for specific directions which the Deke was happy to clearly provide and we both enjoyed this simple meal a lot.

3.  The series Inspector Lewis consistently portrays Oxford University as populated by weirdos and the episode I watched tonight was no exception.  The story involved a man murdered by drowning in a bathtub of scalding water and developed from there into a story about atheism, romantic longing, a line from Thomas Wyatt, and more murder.  Intense.  Here's the Thomas Wyatt poem alluded to in the episode, a poem I really liked thirty-one years ago as I prepped for my Renaissance Literature field exam -- and now I have no idea what got me so excited about it back in 1984 at the University of Oregon.  I've pretty much lost touch with that version of myself.....

They Flee From Me

BY SIR THOMAS WYATT

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild and do not remember

That sometime they put themself in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special,

In thin array after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small;

Therewithall sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, “Dear heart, how like you this?”

It was no dream: I lay broad waking.

But all is turned thorough my gentleness

Into a strange fashion of forsaking;

And I have leave to go of her goodness,

And she also, to use newfangleness.

But since that I so kindly am served

I would fain know what she hath deserved.