Happy birthday also to
funkyturtle, and happy early birthday to marthawells, aragornlover, alii_s, beatonna, agameofthree, nowitsdark0, ekeppich, jinxed_wood, princeofcairo, frahulettaes, llembas, 
icarusfall1ng, soonerwxgirl, delenn1960, sueworld2003, shagungu, xanath, northwestmagpie, curtana, sneakybea, and litlover12. May you all enjoy many happy returns of the day!And last, a quote for the day, from a passage by Mary Shelley that I simply love:
"What a sea is the tide of passion, whose fountains are in our own nature! Our virtues are the quick-sands, which show themselves at calm and low water; but let the waves arise and the winds buffet them, and the poor devil whose hope was in their durability, finds them sink from under him. The fashions of the world, its exigencies, educations and pursuits, are winds to drive our wills, like clouds all one way; but let a thunderstorm arise in the shape of love, hate, or ambition, and the rack goes backward, stemming the opposing air in triumph."
"Yet," replied I, "nature always presents to our eyes the appearance of a patient: while there is an active principle in man which is capable of ruling fortune, and at least of tacking against the gale, till it in some mode conquers it."
"There is more of what is specious than true in your distinction," said my companion. "Did we form ourselves, choosing our dispositions, and our powers? I find myself, for one, as a stringed instrument with chords and stops--but I have no power to turn the pegs, or pitch my thoughts to a higher or lower key."
"Other men," I observed, "may be better musicians."
from Mary Shelley, The Last Man (1826)
