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In UK time, it’s my birthday already! But over here, I still have half an hour left, and I just made good use of my last Sunday evening aged 27 to see Wonder Woman with Todd and Carolyn. It’s been long enough since I last saw a summery superhero action movie that I was able to really embrace and enjoy it, especially the opening section on the Amazonian island of Themyscira. It only left a small part of me feeling a bit ungrateful at the end, since concluding the First World War only bought Europe a mere 21 years of peace – much of which was taken up by influenza and/or depression. If a superhero could volunteer to help draft a better Treaty of Versailles, or get a head start on Keynesian economics, that would be much appreciated.

I have been wanting to write something ever since Election Night, but haven’t found the right way to express my contradictory feelings. It was, at least, a much more interesting and exciting Election Night than everyone predicted – which was good, because I’d invited James over to witness parliamentary democracy in action, and feared it was going to be pretty boring. Not so. But still, I feel sad for the country, still drudging towards senseless economic self-harm, led by a tragic, broken figure – who can’t possibly be enjoying the job – whose lamentable, delusional address the next morning was honestly shocking for how poor it was.

A few weeks ago I enjoyed a happier political story – The 39th – about Will Guzzardi’s successful run for the Illinois state government in 2014. (I saw it as part of a film festival block of short films called The One With The Governor – some others were good, some were less good.) Even so, I’m a little tired of seeing and hearing stories from election campaigns. Campaigns are the least interesting part of politics! I realise a film about how awfully state government actually runs (or doesn’t run) in Illinois when no-one is paying attention wouldn’t fit into a good narrative arc… but I would appreciate it. Sequel?

OK, I’m done being grumpy. (Forgive me, I’m almost old.) Lighter diversions in the past few weeks have included a visit to Podhalanka with Karol. It’s a beautifully calm, old-fashioned, homely Polish restaurant nearby where you can enjoy traditional Polish food and complain about Polish politics. And yesterday, Randi and I joined Catherine and AJ in a return trip to the Lake Michigan Shore Wine Festival. So to conclude, here is a photo – stolen from Randi – of the pleasant post-festival hour we spent locked out of our rental car waiting for help. (That’s not sarcasm – it was nice and sunny, and we bought delicious ice-cream and played frisbee on the grasss with my Cubs hat. Best locked-out-of-car experience ever.)

AJ juggles

Time for a mini post! A bite-sized, Trump-fingered hors d’oeuvre of a post which I’m writing, unless I’m repressing memories again, from the first motel I’ve ever stayed in. There’s nothing wrong with this motel, to be clear, unless I’m murdered after posting this. Murdered or not, I’m in Palo Alto this week for work before flying to New Mexico for the long Memorial Day weekend, so wanted to clear the blogging decks in advance of that trip.

Sunny blue skies, as yet murder-free motel

What I really wish I’d taken a photo of, but you’ll just have to imagine instead, is the stolen Google bike (in Google colours) lying discarded in some bushes by the pavement.

Back in Chicago, it came to my attention that I don’t think Chloe and Aaron have ever actually appeared here pictorially, so below is a particularly tense moment from a game of 6 Nimmt! (not a typo) which Katie dispatched for Randi’s birthday:

A clearly outrageous situation

Today’s frozen yoghurt flavour of choice: French vanilla

Nerdy statistical vignette:

The other day, at work, I had several rows of numbers in an Excel spreadsheet. They represented two ratios over multiple days. On every single day, ratio A was higher than ratio B. But when I added them all together over all days, ratio B was higher than ratio A. I was convinced I was doing something wrong, but eventually I went hunting round the office for a pair of statisticians, who gazed at my spreadsheet and declared I had stumbled across Simpson’s paradox in the wild. “It’s beautiful!” they said. Beautiful, but strange. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to read up on weird statistical quirks on Wikipedia, now is your chance.

Joke which I overheard and will now steal to balance out nerdy statistical vignette:

“I’m good friends with 25 letters of the alphabet, but I don’t know why…”

Rest of post:

After walking past the Kingston Mines blues club and saying “we should check that out sometime!” many times, Randi and I finally visited one Saturday night, and it was lovely. Also the drinks were surprisingly inexpensive, which is how I ended up drinking as much sangria as I did and having to compensate with cheesy chips. (They weren’t quite cheesy chips in the way Cat would understand, but close enough.) Later that weekend we played an extended game of ‘mega Carcassonne’ with Catherine and AJ, seeking an unfair advantage for ourselves by adding in as many expansions as we could. I doubt we’ll be invited back.

More Carcassonne! More!

Continuing the French theme, last week we went back to Improv Shakespeare with Ellen and Emilie and watched The Mariner’s Mistake unfold: a story of war between England and France’s rather sensitive and likeable King Philippe. Plus fighting cat soldiers. And then on Sunday, as you may have noticed, we watched all sorts of likeable French people in real life cheer in Paris as their successful election results were announced. Bon travail!

We also watched Howl’s Moving Castle (strong start, somewhat meandering middle, always beautiful to watch) and hosted two mini Eurovision parties for the semi finals. (A full Eurovision report from a cabin in Wisconsin should be expected from my next post.) Below is our second gathering… a shout out to Calvin and Emilie who helped us eat a lot of cheese and wine during the first one, including a baked Camembert which Cat would certainly have approved of…

A new generation of newly-minted Eurovision fans

Assuming my mum’s negatives were labelled correctly, this was me at thirteen

Today, this blog officially becomes a teenager. Happy thirteenth birthday, blog! No one will like you for a couple of years.

I’ve never thought about it this way before, but I guess we’re also getting close to the point where I’ll have been blogging for over half of my life. This messes with my internal chronology, as did discovering that the Lib Dem candidate for the Brent Central constituency – where I will soon have to cast a hastily arranged proxy vote for someone – is a mere 22 years old. That doesn’t seem acceptable. Or how about this: if Theresa May wins a thumping majority, I could be just shy of 33 before getting any chance to vote in a general election. At that point, stop counting.

Our Adler crew of victorious scavenger hunters

None of this ageing crisis applies to Doctor Who. Randi and I saw the first episode of the new series in the cinema and we both loved it so much. Bill is a wonderful new companion who instinctively makes me smile, Capaldi is warmer and friendlier and the whole thing feels fresh and exciting and adventurous. (This is not a reaction against the last series, which I also loved, but it certainly feels different.)

Last week we also had our third outing to Adler After Dark where we supported Catherine and AJ’s strenuous efforts to complete the scavenger hunt and win free drink vouchers. We also learnt about the hypothetical Planet Nine in a presentation which confirmed how ridiculous Pluto’s ‘planet’ status always was. I resent people who cheer for Pluto at astronomy presentations. I’m that person. (See how I’ve hardened over the years…)

Finally, we also saw Scapegoat at the Den Theatre. In the play, a trio of ‘Religious Freedom Caucus’ politicians face off against an old, established, liberal senator and his family. Also, the senator is secretly a Satanist. Also, his son has converted to Christianity after losing his wife. There are a lot of “also,” moments in this play in general, which was fun to watch (because, c’mon, it has whole scenes about Senate procedure!) but didn’t actually make a lot of sense. Most obviously, a constitutional amendment to force a national referendum on “any law affecting the rights of a minority” is a terrible idea, and someone should have told the playwright this.

The faces of pure joy

Looking at the wrong camera

Finally finally, above are the amazing Meepillows which Catherine and AJ went to extraordinary lengths to get for us! A very special day.