I’ve met a lot of people on my travels.

A lot.

But only a very small portion of those people end up becoming friends. (And that’s fine. I go for quality over quantity, anyway.)

Yet I don’t even have to be on the move to come into contact with quality people. Sometimes I meet people through the ‘net that I feel I was meant to meet. Rox is one example. Tom is another. Anne is another. (I could go on, especially if I started listing good friends who don’t have websites quite yet.)

And today I’d like to point out how thankful I am for my travel-writer friend, Tui. (You may remember her from my interview of her last year.) At first, I was going to send this to her privately, but I thought you might enjoy it as well. Since I know she wouldn’t have any problem with me sharing this, I’m going to give this word-based present to her publicly.

You see, today is her birthday, and I’d like to dedicate this to her.

To Tui Snider, my long-time Texan friend:

Totally off the grid
I’ve heard you say you lived
Nearly blown up once, too.
Yet you could still forgive

San Juan Island Adventure
I’m so glad you survived!
The world needs your cryptic notes
And the resulting “Hypothetical Pie”

Thanks for being fully You
(And such a creative cook)
Your sunny attitude is uplifting
I look forward to your book!

Can’t believe a simple blog carnival
Is where from all this stemmed
I feel so blessed to know you
And call you my good friend

 

By the way, while you’re here, feel free to say “Hi” to her on Twitter. She loves hearing friendly twitter messages and is an all-around terrific human being.

And if you happen to catch this within a couple days of its original publishing date, why not wish her a happy birthday, too? 🙂