To love, honor and cherish ...

Love is in the air.

So is entirely too much mercury. (Since when is it 90-something here in June?!?)

Oh yeah, and an annoying amount of pollen. (My poor contacts!)

But back to the point.

Two years ago last Tuesday, I stood on a beach in Hawaii and said "I do" (take you as my lawfully-wedded husband). Last Tuesday, I sat at The Melting Pot in Tacoma and said "I do (not think I should eat any more, or I may die)" again.

Some full circle.

I initially was going to talk about this on Tuesday but I decided to wait until after Brooke's wedding so I could write more, and I also figured it would be cliched to write a marital ode (not that I have any intentions of doing that; I'm no Edgar Allen Pink) on our actual anniversary. And any good journalist will tell you: Cliches are bad.

So I'll just say this: I love my husband. He's intelligent and dedicated. He's funny (85 percent of the time) and a good shoulder to cry on. He'll go shopping with me if no one else will. He looks good in a suit. He's a hell of a journalist. He knows his Cougar football. He's gracious enough to rank Cougar football as his No. 2 love.

Being married to Chris is easy. But sometimes life is very hard. And I think the fact that we're both still standing after everything we've been through in the last two years, from losing jobs to almost losing parents to losing other things I don't want to talk about, shows that we have a strong relationship.

I think these lyrics, from a song I first heard a few months ago, sum it up pretty well: "This is just a typical love story ... We started out as friends ... and this is how it ends ... This is just a typical love story ... the boy you never wanted just steals your heart ... I never saw it coming 'til I fell so hard."

And speaking of love, you can't say I don't love my friends.

Brooke can get me to come to the Tri-Cities. She can get me to wear a brown dress. And she also somehow can talk me into dancing at her wedding, even though I hate and/or suck at it. She clearly is packing a lot of power in that 5-foot-2 frame.

I did my first internship in the Tri-Cities, back in 2002, and I hated every minute of it. (Ironically, Chris interned there the summer before and loved it.) The main reason why was that their copy desk did both editing and design, with the main emphasis on design. It too often became a rush to get the story on the page, and there was no time for fun headlines or special touches. I have had a longstanding love affair with words, and that, coupled with the fact that I recieved no mentoring, no one really made the effort to get to know me, and it was 300 degrees out, and I walked away angry about two things, the first one being that I would never treat an intern that way (as evidenced by the fact that I offer to mentor our interns every summer).

The second one is really why I am not such of a fan of the Tri-Cities (and honestly, it's not the actual cities, or the heat): My first internship made me doubt myself. I left there wondering if I actually could succeed in this business, and if I even wanted to. I was pretty disheartened, and to this day, I resent the fact that a mere 12 weeks could make me question the goal I have steadfastly pursued since I was 12 years old. And that's another reason why I love The Times; from a journalistic-survival standpoint, they kind of rescued me the following summer.

So honestly, going back there was bittersweet. But I love Brooke and Brian, so off to the three-city sauna I went, with brown dress in hand. (And speaking of, I ended up not hating the dress as much as I initially did once my emergency alterations were done and it was no longer six sizes too big. However, it still was too big, and the bagginess made me look fat(ter). I maintain it's the dress, not all the fondue I ate on Tuesday. Even so, we actually looked pretty good as a group, if I do say so myself.)

And ironically, I had a blast. The Tri-Cities have redeemed themselves in my eyes (except for the lack of Starbucks anywhere near wherever I was). The rehearsal dinner at Anthony's in Richland was lovely, our hotel in Pasco was very nice (we were upgraded to a suite) and the wedding, which was near the Columbia River in Pasco, was absolutely spectacular (and so was the temperature: 103 as the ceremony started; it kind of makes me wish her family had settled somewhere like the Arctic Circle).

Brooke was the most beautiful bride I have seen, and she just glowed. In the eight years we have been friends, we have been there for each other through some real highs and lows, and to see her that happy, marrying the man she loved, just as she was there when I was in her shoes back in 2006, was a wonderful moment. It was a honor to be one of her bridesmaids, and I even forgive her for the brown dress, which technically wasn't her fault. I admit that having my hair done like Teri's from the SAGs with pink flowers in the back definitely sweetened it. (The front was parted on the left and laid flat, which mercifully held up in the heat. I didn't want people asking Brooke why Diana Ross was one of her bridesmaids.)

So today, I had to go to work, on day one of my week in Editorial, which means I have to be sitting here by 10 a.m. I'm dead tired from the weekend, I have a blister on my left foot, and my throat is still a bit raw (it may have something to do with the bridal party belting out "Living on a Prayer" on the dance floor) but it was so worth it.

Love is so worth it.