Wuv, Tru Wuv

The Impressive Clergyman: Mawage. Mawage is wot bwings us togeder tooday. Mawage, that bwessed awangment, that dweam wifin a dweam...
[cut to Westley, Inigo, and Fezzik]
The Impressive Clergyman: And wuv, tru wuv, will fowow you foweva...
[cut to the trio again]
The Impressive Clergyman: So tweasure your wuv.
Prince Humperdinck: Skip to the end.
The Impressive Clergyman: Have you the wing?
[cut to the trio once more]
Prince Humperdinck: Man and wife. Say man and wife.
The Impressive Clergyman: Man an' wife.

-The Princess Bride, of course

Four years ago:

Still reeling from the shock of September 11.

A tabloid editor in Florida was reported to have contracted anthrax. He died the next day.

Gas was $1.53 a gallon.

And, and: I married Sweet William in a small civil ceremony. At the reception, one of the songs we played was the Police’s “When the World is Running Down, You Make the Best of What’s Still Around.”

Happy Anniversary, my love.

If you don’t know the story, Sweet William and I were introduced by his mom. She and I used to work together, and we became friendly, and she decided that Will and I would really get along. I was resistant, but finally let her convince me to meet him for coffee. Six months later, I moved in with him, and six months after that, we got married. And here we are, four years later, and, we’re pretty much none the worse for wear.

I love my husband, and let me tell you why.

1. When I was sick and sleep-deprived, he got up and put the baby back to bed in the middle of the night – more than once, and despite also being sick and having to go to work at 7:30 a.m.
2. When the kettle is whistling and I have my hands full, he (without being asked) turns off the kettle and makes me a cup of tea and goes about his business.
3. He keeps his sense of humor even when we are both sick and exhausted.
4. He wants to share everything with me – not just material things, but experiences, no matter how small or silly, like our neighbor’s face when she made herself up to look like she had smallpox.
5. He plays silly games with me – we once took turns over several weeks hiding a rubber red number 5 from each other so it would pop up in weird places (e.g. in the medicine cabinet next to my saline solution).
6. He is always on my side.
7. He never does anything half-assed. Once he decides to do something, it’s full steam ahead.
8. He is pretty even-tempered and overall, very good-natured.
9. He will make up interpretive dances for me and dance, poker-faced, for a solid five minutes while I am peeing my pants laughing (think ‘N Sync/Michael Jackson/Michael Flatley dance moves set to, say, Led Zeppelin or the White Stripes).
10. He is solidly loyal: “Fuck everyone on the other side of that door.”
11. He believes in me, despite myself.
12. He has a beautiful smile.
13. He has a core sense of decency and common sense that floats to the surface in every trying situation.
14. He is stubborn as an ass.
15. He is so in love with our child that it makes me weepy to think about it.
16. When he comes in the door at the end of the day, you would think we were the only people in the world.
17. He brings me ice cream, unbidden.
18. He takes out the trash.
19. He tells me I am beautiful even when I am breaking out.
20. He loves the way I look no matter how I cut my hair.

Happy Anniversary, honey. Here’s to four times four times four, to well, you know. Smoochos!