Put some butter on it. By popular demand.

One thing Wer, Wif, and I have in common is an English professor - whom we've nicknamed T-Unit - who always wore horrible clothing, rusty orange sweaters or woolen suit jackets, and everything with leather elbow patches crusted on. He was fond of saying that they appeared, magically, on everything in his closet, the night he got tenure.

That story has nothing to do with anything [laughter], except that in the days when Wer and Wif were in T-Unit's Beowulf class we would sit to dinner in the dining hall, this with a group of our roommates and friends, and grill him about their relationship, and he would always clam up and get this sheepish grin on his face - a grin similar to what he has right now. [everyone turns to the head table, where he has his head buried in Wif's shoulder.]

Because the truth is that Wer is goofy. [laughter] If anyone here is familiar with the TV show How I Met Your Mother, I think you'll agree with me when I say that he is of the same goofy cast as Marshall, and that Wif fits the bill to be Lily. But Wer, like Marshall, has so many admirable characteristics on top of his goofiness: his loyalty, his passion, and...I knew I would forget one [looking down at my note paper] oh, right, his intelligence. [laughter] I...that came out way more sarcastic than I meant it to be.

And for every compliment I have for Wer, I have three for Wif; the two are a great match for one another. They are the kind of couple, like Marshall and Lily, who, down in DC, would be just as happy to sit on the side of the reflecting pool, rather than visit the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial. [Good-ol-Abe, Wer, and Wif laugh. Everyone else is confused.] Inside joke.

So - and this is where I should raise my glass - congratulations. May your qualities always resonate with one another; may you find happiness with each other, wherever you may be; and may you always love each other, no matter what terrible fashion decisions you may perpetrate.