Flim Noir

The morning began unlike most other Saturday mornings. Abigail woke late and leisurely stretched herself out, admiring the leggy blonde sleeping beside her.
 

"Musta put on the extra charm last night," she mused.
 

The Cat walked in, tail tip twitching.
"They're gone," she meowed. Her green eyes took in the bed and its occupants. "Sorry," she said, and slipped quietly out the door for a rendezvous with the tom next door.
 

The "they" the Cat had mentioned were the homeowners. 

"Gotta nice place, that Daniel and Brittney," Abigail said. She slid out of the bed and out the door to the shower in one smooth and liquid motion. Emerging a half-hour later she found the blonde in the kitchen, wearing a slim white shirt and a beard you'd like to frolic in. 

"I made breakfast," he said. 

It looked good, like something you'd want to eat on toast. Abigail sat down and ate her omelet. She drank her coffee--chai latte, the way she liked it--and watched warily as the blonde cleaned and loaded his hefty semi-automatic, playing periodically with the safety. 

The Cat walked in, unaware, wearing a face that bespoke a pleasant encounter. 

The blonde swiveled around in his chair, aimed, and fired. 

The Cat sank to the floor, one paw weakly stretched out towards the orange-tipped blue dart, and lay there, prone.
 

Abigail sipped her coffee, and reached for the salt.

A Very English Wedding

Garrett and I went to England for Garrett's brother's wedding to a girl from Manchester who shall afterwards be known as "Jo", for that is her name. I actually met her at our wedding in December, but naturally weddings are not good times for relaxed hanging-out and real getting-to-know-yous. All interactions thus far, though, have been delightful--including with her very large English family (6 siblings including Jo, 5 of which also have spouses, and some have children).
Speaking of family, I also spent a good deal more time with my in-laws, who continue to amuse and delight me. All except Joey. He's a one-trick pony who can only talk about politics and how soon Garrett and I are going to make him a baby.
I will now attempt to give a relatively correct chronological play-by-play using only my wit and the photos I was able to capture with my dumb phone camera.
Please enjoy.

Wednesday we traveled to England. At the advice of multiple people, I acquired a few xanax from an Undisclosed Source to take for the plane rides. I took one the weekend before to make sure I didn't have any weird side-effects. I even took it with alcohol. No side-effects occurred that weekend, though I did notice on the trip back yesterday (with no alcohol) that my left index finger had a habit of spasming every half hour or so. Anyhow, some of you are dying to know... yes, the xanax worked. Next time I'll need to plan further ahead and get an actual prescription for more than two of them. Two were not enough to last all the traveling, but it was definitely obvious when it started working, since all my twisty insides went from High Alert Stress and Agony to Zzz.

We arrived in England, got to the house around 9am Thursday morning, and went to bed. I assumed we'd wake up after a power nap in an hour or so. When we finally did wake up, it was 4:30pm, and we were told that while we slept, Joey had crept ever so softly into our room and laid spread-eagle across us and then taken up little spoon position with Garrett for twenty minutes.
Neither Garrett nor I woke during this, though afterwards I did vaguely remember Joey entering and hearing him whispering Garrett's name tenderly a few times. I thought at the time he had just knelt on the bed a moment and then left.
Anyway, we awoke, then prepared for an evening out. Garrett went on a pub crawl about town (the Dinsbury Dozen. You can imagine from that how sober they were when they returned) with all the other applicable males. Since it was the fourth of July, all the Americans attempted to blend in with the Brits and wore American flag t-shirts.
Meanwhile, Lynn and I dressed up like classy people and went to a fancy restaurant with Jo, her bridesmaids, and a couple close friends. This restaurant was delightful because it had the posh sort of food that's all piled up in the middle of your plate, layered fish to asparagus, and has an expensive sauce flung round it like the artistic foodie version of My Art Spinner.

 This was my desert. Lemon meringue shortcake with raspberry sherbert and a decaf cappuccino.

That night we got back around midnight, and the men stumbled home about twenty minutes later (they had walked two miles back from the last pub). I went down to greet them and found the younger ones seated around the kitchen table with diet coke chasers and a liter of Swedish vodka.

"Abby!" says Bryce. "Vodka?"

I looked at the cup in his hand, around the table, and thought about the next morning--the morning I'd promised to help decorate the reception venue. I sighed and sat down. The evening ended a liter of vodka and a political fight later at 4:30 am. I decided it was time for bed when I realized that the light growing steadily stronger outside was the dawn, and not Manchester proper.

The next day (Friday) was a bit rough, but the reception hall looked wonderful!

That morning I went downstairs and most of the Kimball men were naked in some way or another. It is apparently a thing that happens frequently.

 Tame photo after some clothes had been donned.

 Joey and Bryce making their tummy fat kiss.

Joey, I will use these photos later as blackmail if necessary. 

It was only after an apple had been added to the mix that Frank suddenly bellowed for them to cut it out because his in-laws were at the door. 

 

I drew this for the front page of the guestbook (moustaches were a party favour theme).

Another thing that happened was the rehearsal, where all the groomsmen misbehaved.

The next day was Saturday and it was the day of the wedding!
And for basically the entire morning all the men were mostly naked again because their pants were being hemmed. I went downstairs and Joey, Bryce, and Frank were in their "pants" which in England means their "underpants." Then I tried to escape upstairs and found Scott in his pants.

"Poor thing," said Momma Lynn to me afterwards. "You had to see the father-in-law in his undies."

I didn't get pictures of any of that for you, though.

Here are a few photos after they were clothed:

 Prep in the morning. 

 Frank and Momma Lynn.

 

 Joey looking presidential.

This is Grandmother Edith. She was super excited about all the handsome young men and planted a fat one right on Garrett's smacker before anybody could warn him. Joey accepted his kiss, but Bryce managed to deflect and just catch it on the cheek.

 

Kimball men.

 Kisses.

 Looking regal before he weds.

Unfortunately I couldn't get any photos during the actual wedding because Frank and Jo had decided to make it not only a wedding, but a worship service. It was completely awesome and we sang great songs like 

And one or two I didn't even know, but the Baptist Kimballs did. It was a great idea, and really encouraging. I wasn't expecting the Brits to sing so loudly or with so much feeling.

 Yay us. <3

 Selfie while walking through a park to do creative photos of the bridal party.

 We find the new Kimballs at the park!

 A flower I found. It was a beautiful park.

 D'aww.

 Brothers apart. 

 Brotherly love.

 Kimball men strutting their stuff.

 

Mine. 

 

Sneaky photo I took of a happy Garrett face at the reception.

 Having some laughs after the wedding.

 

Scott practicing his "father of the groom" speech.

Boys just want to have fun.

 Frank's speech at the reception. I maybe cried a little bit.

 

The best men's speech. Garrett starts them off. Apparently this is a huge deal in England and everybody looks forward to it. The only rules are no stories about exes, and you have to mention at least once how beautiful the bride is, and that the bridesmaids are also lovely and have performed their jobs wonderfully.

Of course, Garrett, Bryce, and Joey all did their jobs admirably and well-enough to satisfy even the British expectations. 

Bryce enjoying some wine.

 Some Hardy boys from Yorkshire. 

Bridal party!

 Bryce speachifyin'

 Joey channeling Romney:
"Let me answer that question by asking you a question..."

Hugs of appreciation.

Then there was much dancing and great rejoicing and the wine flowed and we didn't leave the party until well after midnight.

The next day Garrett and I got up early and took a train to Birmingham to meet up with my cousin, Krystel, her husband Brandon, and their three kids!

 The menfolk, chatting. I only got one picture of Krystel, and unfortunately it was a really bad one with weird lighting. Arg. Oh, well.

 Oh, but we did see some super ugly statues. 

 This reclining fox lady looked really unbalanced and had her arms off to the side in an awkward gesture, cupping water. 

 Also this thing that is like the bastard cub of Persia and Easter Island, with a dash of Buddha and some mongrel.

 Derp.

 It was at this point, walking behind our men, Krystel and I suddenly realized we have a "type."

We did.

Then on Monday we went to Wales! 

 We really had much more fun than this picture represents.

 

Welsh, man.

 Sometimes it was hard to tell which was the English translation and how to pronounce it.

 In Wales there are just castles like, lying around. This one is Conwy Castle. It was built by Edward 1 between 1283-89 and was just the right mixture of run down and well-preserved.

 

And this is the last photo I took before my phone battery died. Sigh.

Anyway, after the castle, we decided to find some roman ruins, so we left Conwy and drove about twenty minutes before we saw a sign for the town and church with the longest name in the world: 

Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

Not even kidding. 

So we visited that old church, then drove for another twenty minutes and found a Neolithic burial site just out in the country in the middle of a bunch of fields with sheep and cows in them. 

We never did find any roman sites, but we did find a cute little bistro for dinner. I had Ciabatta bread with brie cheese and mango chutney, Lynn got a delicious little mackerel, and most of the rest of the guys got fish and chips made with pretty much the freshest fish ever, given our nearness to a body of water that--I believe--connects with the Irish sea?

Then we went home and all our conversations with British people went thusly:

Us: "Yeah, we went to Wales."

Them: "What, all in one day??"

Us: "Yes. Nice little day trip."

Them: "All the way to Wales!?"

Us: "It's only an hour and a half drive?"

Them: *unbelieving*

Us: "Here, let us explain "America" and distances to you..."

The next day the rest of the Kimballs and Joey went on to Sweden and Germany to visit friends, and Garrett and I came home to Pittsburgh.

Every single day in England was sunny. 

When we got to Pittsburgh it was raining. 

The end