As for the mystery at hand, my interpretation is that one of the two was a vigilante sworn to fight vorpal bunnies, and we all know that marriage is the kryptonite of vigilantism. Mary Jane is the ACTUAL villain in Spider Man, right?

At any rate, it turned out vorpal bunnies were much less lethal than science had previously anticipated, meaning that the Nielsen Hayden's time is indeed much better spent being married than hunting long eared fell beasts. Yet still, from time to time the former vigilante may open the secret closet and look nostalgically upon the costume and the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch (including unnecessarily long-winded User's Manual).

Congratulations!

Happy anniversary to Patrick and Teresa, and many more as others have been noting.

Second,

# 1 Daniel

Pedant mode

The "anni" in "anniversary explicitly translates to "year." It had the same root structure as "annual" meaning "yearly."

It's FIFTH anniversary, FIRST anniversay, SECOND anniversary, THIRD anniversay, FOURTH, FIFTH, SIXT, not that abominable offending aliterate asshole media "[number] year anniversary."

Grrrr!

What the fuck ever happened to adjectives and verbals?! (I despise the terminology "good reads" instead of "good reading," also....)

Didn't an American Prez have a sign on his desk reading "The Buck Stops Here"?

D'oh!

(Mark D. @ 9, I make that joke at many birthdays and everyone looks at me like I'm crazy. I'm so very comforted to know that someone else gets it.)

I'm only posting here because I don't want to put any passwords on this computer. I'll type more when I get home.

Good to see you, Marilee!

As for the aliterate asshole media expression I used, apologies! Half of the fun of posting here is being corrected--I remember being called out on using factoid synonymously with fact before.

Not an excuse as much as an explanation: English was the third foreign language I learned (after Latin and French) due to my high school being a really odd catholic private school. I was 16 when I had my first English lesson in school, and by that time I was already fluent in a very interestingly broken way. The way I achieved this was mostly by immersing myself in as much English as I could get my hands on, and back then that meant mostly watching CNN several hours a day as it was the only English channel available to me.

So yes, that was a very good call from Paula. Both of the things I've been called out for seem to come from the same source--mindless media speak. So much for trusting professionals to treat their language with respect.

Learning is awesome, even if you feel like a moron in the process :D

/off topic

My wife and I just past 6 years a couple of days ago. I can hardly imagine 30 years.

"The fundamental things of life..." *exits, singing, not pursued by a bear*

An example to us all (3.5 years so far - give us time!)

And Marilee, it's good to read your posts again.

Officially, 30 years of marriage gives you the right to offer authoritative advice on the subject. Unofficially, as a (mostly) lurker here for several years, I think you (in the plural) have provided a wonderful example of the power of a committed marriage -- which is much better than mere advice!

Over dinner, we were discussing how to stay married for 15 years (Martin and me) or 30 years. The distilled wisdom:

1. Get married
2. Don't get:
    a. divorced
    b. dead

3. be able to laugh at or be amused by the same things.

4. Be able to put water in your wine.

Here's to good and lasting marriages, and to vorpal bunny weirdness in politics, too.

Congratulations, P&T. May continued love and joy together be yours.

*cheers Paula's pedantry @10*

And congratulations to all for all the things worth celebrating, and especially W00T! to Marilee for getting to come home.

Obzombie: Being undead is also bad for a marriage.

http://nielsenhayden.com/ptnh-on-park-bench-2.jpg
and
http://nielsenhayden.com/ptnhtohonochul2004.jpg

Also, thanks for the rabbit information Abi - it's so easy to miss the big stories sometimes.

Clifton Royston @39: About to celebrate our 9th this week.

First read that as celebrating our 9th week; announcing it seemed cute.

Of course, happy anniversary to you too (and not 30/9 as awesome — fully awesome)!

and belated birthday wishes to TNH (would that I could phrase them in Anglo-Saxon or Middle English)

Pamela

1. Get married
2. Don't get:
    a. divorced
    b. dead

I guess that pretty much covers it; everything else is ancillary. If I were to add one additional suspicion, it is that the biggest assistance as to your point 2.a (and probably also point 1) is:

    Really like each other a lot.

It seems to me the Nielsen Haydens have that in spades.

ObCook: Mawwiage. Mawwiage is what bwings us together today. Mawwiage, this bwessed awwangement; this dweam within a dweam...

64: so true. Look at the Brides of Dracula. A dysfunctional relationship if ever there were one. Not to mention the many examples of unhappy marriages, Doleful Ghosts etc linked by Mr Macdonald...
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/006448.html

As for Carter and the rabbit, well, Napoleon got attacked by rabbits, too, and nobody (other than possibly Josephine) called him a wimp!

http://www.strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic104b.asp

I hope my delay in acknowledging Teresa's natal anniversary and your joint marital one is not seen as evincing any reduction in the warmth and sincerity of my good wishes for you.[/Mr Collins]

The food chain is a complex rope,
And at the top we live,
And ev'rything thing that's edible
To us themselves will give!

The vorpal bunny's a fearsome beast
With teeth and giant feet
A monstrous threatening animal
On ev'rything it feasts!

But prey and predator they can switch
And so the hare shall go
And when that damned bunny dares return
In stewpots it shall go!

The vorpal bunny's went snickersnack
And chewed up all my trees
The vorpal bunny that's in my yard,
A loathsome plant disease!
But someday soon I'll have revenge
And that beast shall be dead
On that day my friends and I
We shall be quite fed!

The vorpal bunny went snickersnack--
But dead meat it shall be!

And Marilee, welcome back! It's so good to hear of your progress.

We got married a mere three days before an important fannish event - the premiere of Star Wars. And we spent part of our honeymoon watching the movie, then watching Gardner Dozois do wookiee imitations at Disclave (when we weren't busy...on, never mind).