Happy Birthday, Elizabeth

You don't mind if I call you Elizabeth, do you? After all, I feel I've known you for a lifetime. In fact, we may even be related. Both my grandparents were British, you know, and if Grandma was right about her ancestry, we might very well be, at  best, cousins; at worst it is possible that I should be the Queen and you, well, a pretender. But, no matter. No hard feelings here.

As a matter of fact, it has been a lifetime since I watched you, as a young girl of 25, waving shyly to the crowd helping you celebrate your coronation. Watching you on that day, so many years ago, I became an Anglophile, and have never wavered. I have admired the way you have carried out your job and the dignified way you have endured all manner of misbehaviour (notice the British spelling?) of your various children,grandchildren, sister and the rudeness of the paparazzi over the years.

The way you handled the intruder in your bedroom years ago was magnificent. You kept your head (which so many of your forebears have failed to do by the way), and very calmly offered to go and get him a cigarette, thereby making your escape and raising the alarm. What poise! What nerves of steel!

I suffered along with you when Charles married the clueless Diana, and then treated her so badly she finally obtained a divorce and took up with that Arab. I felt your pain when your Subjects seemed to take Diana's side (The People's Princess, indeed), and temporarily turned their backs on you. I see they have come around, now and you are revered once again. Such patience on your part! Such dignity!

And, now, you are Eighty-Five and still going strong. Charles is still waiting in the wings, and then, there is William, second in line. The future reign of the Windsors seems secure.

I know you will enjoy next week's Royal Wedding of Wills and Kate. That should be quite a blow-out, in spite of the fact that they have lived together, off and on, for nine years. How progressive of you to approve of their union! How openminded!

So, Happy Birthday, Elizabeth, and many, many more.

Stay tuned.