the ocean

This weekend we went up to Delavan, Wisconsin, for a wedding. Our friends were getting married at an actual summer camp and we were all invited to stay in the cabins there, but I don't get on well with snakes and some of my other friends aren't into communal showering or mattresses two inches thick, so we got a house nearby. It may have been a stretch to put ten of us into a three bedroom, two bath house, but the price was right and everyone was fairly easygoing, so we made it work. Admittedly, some people were sleeping on air mattresses and futons, but there was not a reptile in sight.

The wedding featured a flash mob which, yes, we were in. We only had one rehearsal, so I felt a fair amount of concern that it would be a disaster, but it turned out pretty well. (And I saw the video, so it was not just the alcohol convincing me that all was right in the world.) There was, in fact, a fair amount of singing and dancing involved in the proceedings, but it was balanced with enough drinking and outdoorsiness to not become too cringeworthy. There was, in fact, archery. And whiskey tasting. What could possibly go wrong?

I did get an incredible number of mosquito bites on my ankles, which I will now be scratching at for the next week. I think of them as a sort of themed gift bag, though I might have preferred chocolate.

Ian's parents are in town this weekend, so it has been a firestorm of activity! That's not even including all the time I've spent talking to the dog in a soothing tone of voice, since it is also Air & Water Show weekend. She seems to believe that I cause the noise of low-flying planes, when in fact we all know it's America that does that. 

Anyway, yesterday we took the folks to The Best of Second City. We enjoyed it a lot, although I was a bit surprised to find that the best of Second City all apparently took place in the last ten years or so. The cast was uniformly strong and much less white and male than I recall from the mid '00s, when I was spending a lot more time there. I can only assume it's the cultural impact of the Barbie movie.

We also watched The Menu with them last night, which was clearly a mistake. To be fair, we did not really know it would feature so much death and dismemberment. We were aware of the Hong Chau, though, so that's on us.

And of course there's been a lot of dining. Last night was Italian, with a side of complaints about the insufficient friendliness of the host, and this morning we went for brunch. It turns out that a lot of brunch places in the area don't even open until 11 on Sundays, which I assume is because everyone in Chicago is so religiously observant. The lord works in mysterious ways.

Yesterday I did the unthinkable and actually went to a street festival that required low-level interactions with dozens to hundreds of my fellow citizens. As frequent visitors to this space (as if) will know, I am not the biggest fan of crowds, as I tend to fear that I'll be shot or subjected to unusual aromas or stale small talk. But the weather was beautiful, I had friends over and a few drinks in me, and we decided to head to Northalsted Market Days. (Northalsted being the more inclusive name for Boystown, where rest assured people will judge and exclude you every bit as much as they ever did.)

It was, for all intents and purposes, fine. It is of course galling that they have the nerve to seek a "suggested donation" of $20 at the gate and then charge $13 for a can of spiked seltzer, but price gouging is by now a grand American tradition. We did get some nifty free sunglasses with the name of a pharmaceutical company on the side to make up for it. And there was free entertainment, of a sort. We heard several fine cover bands, none of which acknowledged my repeated entreaties to play "Crash Into Me," which was admittedly the correct and perhaps only response. We got some sun, saw some friends, and did not get shot, so I'll call it a win. 

My niece and nephew stayed over with us this weekend. It's my sister's anniversary, and for some reason they like to spend that weekend without tantrums over who gets to sit in which chair for Bluey. (Unless they're into that as a couple, I don't know.) So while they were sipping champagne in a helicopter flying over the Swiss Alps (that's just my guess), we were maintaining law and order with a five year old and an eight year old.

This time it went surprisingly well, even if they did somehow bring non-stop rain with them again. We had planned to take them to the park and set up a kiddie pool on the back deck, but instead we took them to Target and forced them to watch '90s Disney classics. The biggest triumph was that we got them to eat, with Maggie happily devouring not one but two lunches of jelly sandwiches and Ruffles, since we finally replaced our "weird" jelly with the "purple" stuff. Jack even said that the food at Uncle Julio's Mexican was "exactly as good as the food daddy makes," which is no doubt what a multi-million-dollar national chain hopes to hear. 

I am losing my mind slightly with the atypically nasty weather, but at least I'm not at Lollapalooza. Standing in the rain for Morgan Wade is not my idea of a good time, no matter what Kyle Richards tells me.