Cozying up indoors, outdoors.

OH, WOW I DO NOT ENJOY SHOPPING.

In our last session, my therapist suggested adopting the Scandinavian hygge lifestyle to combat the winter blues, which, for me, starts in October. The idea is to make my living space cozy and inviting so I’ll look forward to hanging out in it. This seems like solid advice. So far, it’s taken me on a two-hour journey through various online retailers for an area rug.

When I finally thought I’d settled on a rug, I saw the shipping cost and noped out. Thus my rug research continues. Help.

Also, who, other than NEST, makes good scented candles? I know I’d like to border the living room with strings of warm white lights, but shopping for that is dreadful, too. Once my living room is as cozy as can be, I’ll require a plush hooded robe to lounge around in.

My birthday is somewhat coming up: if mid-August wasn’t too early for grocery stores to stock Halloween treats, it isn’t too early for me to think about my birthday wish list. It’s a milestone birthday, too: the sort that warrants a tiered cake. As an adult with a moderate disposable income, wish lists seem unnecessary. Except, I actually wish for people to locate these items, which I’ll then pay for myself. Volunteer as my personal shopper for my birthday!

The anniversary of myself aside, I co-celebrated an anniversary last weekend: Jordi and I have been together for a year. Now that we’ve hit that milestone, I can finally reveal his face:

Here is Jordi in Port Renfrew outside the tube we spent three nights in:

“It’s a barrel, not a tube.”

While I agree it’s a barrel, the word “tube” is more fun to say. Encased in the tube were a king-sized bed, bench seating, a pull-out table and a storage space underneath the bed. The fragrant red cedar was strong enough to mask our unwashed bodies even by the fourth day.

Rustic, yet luxurious. The rustic part was the campground’s disgusting (even by campground standards) washrooms. The washrooms were disgusting enough for us to abstain from showering during our weekend getaway.

We brought our tents, expecting to have to pitch one of them because Jordi was originally only able to reserve two nights in the tube. The practical things we brought were our bikes, board games, magic mushrooms, and acid. We thoroughly prepared for a fun weekend. We succeed, even though our shroom and acid trips were flops. We know now that, unlike our relationship, shrooms and acid lose their magic with age.

We did not need drugs to have fun, as evident by an straight edge Jordi on a driftwood swing:

Look at that smile! He’s lucky to have a lady who is dumber than an 8-year-old Japanese kid.

One of the games we attempted to play was Hanabi, a cooperative game where the objective is to build a fireworks display using cards, kind of like Solitaire with Go Fish elements. The game relies on players giving each other good hints and having a solid short-term memory, neither of which I’m capable of. I struggled to grasp the rules and was dismayed to see “Age 8+” printed on the box. Jordi thought he was softening the blow when he pointed out how Japanese 8-year-olds are generally more advanced than their American counterparts. Alas, the only thing this so-called morale boost did was make me laugh myself to tears.

I still do not understand how to play the game, for I do not have Japanese primary school education. We had some fun playing Boss Monster before I got hung up on the wording of one of the cards. Citadel also had over-complicated rules we couldn’t master even after two games. The winning game of the weekend was Jaipur, with its simple rules and a good balance of strategy and luck. And you get to collect camels!

Here’s a still-sober fun-having Jordi inside a driftwood fort that other people made.

It was a quality fort to spend some time inside, eagerly awaiting our psychedelic trip that never-was.

Look at us together, as we have been for a year now: