The Best Surprise of the Season

         Italy came to me for Christmas. She walked through the door wearing red cord and a black beret, her face still glowing from the Italian summer sun. I had forgotten what vivacity sails in the door just ahead of her. It filled the room and flooded the floor so that it was almost too slippery to walk on, or perhaps it was my enthusiasm that made it difficult to stand. I flapped to the door to greet her. She was real! She was here! My one and only Laura Marini has come once more to the states. Laughing and shouting between mouthfuls of fruit and waffle, the icy film of winter dissipates and the room begins to glow with light and warmth. Even my fingertips regain their color, tingling at the rush of blood flow.
         "What have you been doing, Laura?" Zac bellows above the gleeful tumult. "How, how on earth did you get here?"
         "I've been studying physics at ze university," she called back. "I came on ze airplane, through New York. I arrived on ze tventy-third and spent Christmas with the O.K. Langs." Amidst more shouting Laura communicated that she would be staying until the tenth of the new year. Oh the things we will do! I thought.
         Already we have dawdled about town as we used but two years ago, though under quite different circumstances. This time Laura and I have no Spanish script to write and film. Sweet relief that is! Now we can trundle around all we like, peer in shop windows, laugh at the tourists, throw slush balls, and go sledding in all the wrong places - only the best that Great Barrington has to offer ;p There is iceskating to come, swimming and the sauna, attempts of true Italian cooking, games of cranium and charades, even tango and salsa parties. We have museums to visit, pictures to take, stories to tell, and many, many incapacitating laughs to enjoy. We have already begun to revive the spring, even in the dead of winter.