Where I live (New South Wales, Australia) the official way for cyclists to traverse junctions like this is to stop/slow down about where the back of the red car is, do a 90 degree turn to the right and cross the on-ramp - either cycling or walking - perpendicular to the direction of traffic, then get going again down the “far” side of the on-ramp (from the perspective of this image.)
Not perfect because unless there’s nothing coming down the ramp at all you still have to slow down/lose momentum if not actually stop, but definitely preferable to becoming a human zipper between two lanes of merging cars travelling three times faster than you are.
The grammar Nazis will hate me for this but I’m going with “A friend of mine and my wife’s” as the least horrible way of saying it.
“A friend of mine booked a table…” - all good
“A friend of my wife’s booked a table…” - yep - and check here if you don’t like “wife’s”: https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/a-friend-of-his-wifes.2438592/
“A friend of my wife’s and mine booked a table…” - nope
“A friend of mine and my wife’s booked a table…” - works for me