You're getting a surprise visitor next week, said my Russian one night at the table, five sets of eyes riveted on me, five mouths trying not to laugh at my discomfort. Understand that I generally like surprises (a lot) but I despise the kind where you know a surprise is coming but you aren't told the logistics.

I stew. I humpf. I speculate. I pester. And, shamefully, I whine.

But this time, the surprise was worth the wait! In the deep freeze of December, when my birthday seemed but a warm and distant memory of lazy June days, came a home-made Pineapple Upside-Down Cake from my favorite neighbors, and friends. Memories cascaded of the long philosophical discussions we sometimes hold out in the garden as dusk falls over our part of a fallen world, suddenly turned shining and golden in the comforting warmth that is friendship.



They came inside to the candlelight. A toast. A lump in my throat. An unconvential, unSwisslike hug.

It wasn't so bad now, was it? he whispered in my ear.

The touch of human hands-
That is the boon we ask;
For groping, day by day,
Along the stony way,
We need the comrade heart
That understands,
And the warmth, the living warmth
of human hands.

-- Thomas C. Clark