Merlin Continued

The video pretty much says it all.




After we watched the video we worked out that he's popping the lock by pulling hard and down. We can find no reason why this should work. The lock must be defective. We did it over and over again and each subsequent time it was easier to open. The good thing is, like Merlin, we no longer have to use the magnetic key. At least now we are on par with the dog.

Back to square one.

WTF??!?!

Merlin (the one that hijacked my purse on Tuesday) used to get in the trash every time we'd leave the house. It was disgusting. It made the house so gross; I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry rather than clean it up... again. Our first solution was to put the trash can in a cabinet. That worked for 2.5 days. Then we had to put one of those child proofing mechanisms on the cabinet. You know, the ones that allow you to open the door a couple of inches then you push down the plastic thing and it disengages the stopper on the frame. That worked for 4.75 days. We lived like this for several months trying to remember to take out the trash whenever we left the house. We often forgot.

I couldn't take it anymore, so several weeks ago we installed a magnetic child locking mechanism. It was a major remodel by our standards. In case you don't know, the way it works is you drill a pretty large hole into the cabinet. There's a metal piece that's attached to the lock that goes in the hole. The point is to get the metal piece close enough to the outside of the door so that the magnetic key can be held against the outside of the door causing the lock to disengage. It took a while, but we finally got it installed properly.

We hate it because it works so well. You can imagine how much it sucks to have to get a key each time you want to open the cabinet to throw away garbage. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I came home and the trash was strewn all over the place, just like the good ole days. It happened the next day too. Again, like with the purse incident, I thought I was going crazy. I must not be closing the door, I thought. Even though EVERY single time I try to open the damn door, it's closed. The same thing has happened every day since, sometimes multiple times a day. I have tried every which way under the sun to open the damn door without the magnet. It doesn't budge--it doesn't even pretend to budge.

Finally, I remembered to double-check it before I left the house this morning. Again, the trash was everywhere when we returned. So, tonight I put a ton of bread in the trash; the f'er loves bread! I set up my Flip camera to record the cabinet. He's toast, right?

Two minutes and eight seconds of absolutely nothing passes, then this:






After he knocks the camera over you can hear him walk to the cabinet and several seconds later you can hear the bread bag crumpling.


Obviously, the time has finally come to accept that the f’ing dog is a helluvalot smarter than me.

Eating my words..

I was always a HUGE advocate of pets, particularly dogs. I believed everyone should rescue one from a shelter; it's the right the to do, I thought.

Then I had kids.

You see, Tuesday night was Mom's Night Out with this group I've recently joined. We went to eat dinner then headed to Starbucks. These ladies are a blast. I didn't get home until nearly 11:00. Well, yesterday morning, as I was rounding up the kids to head to gymnastics I noticed that my purse wasn't in an obvious location. I loaded the kids in the car and came back in to look for it. My cell phone was inside, so I called it and raced through the house trying to listen for the vibration. I did this despite the fact that I knew it should have been on the kitchen table because I got home so late the night before. I'm certain I abandoned my belongings as soon as possible and headed to bed.

I had driven Mark's car the night before so I called him and asked him to go check. He works on the 15th floor, so with no more time to spare I left for gymnastics without my purse and phone. Once we arrived, I called Mark using a friend's phone. He told me it wasn't there. How could this be?? I was nearly certain that I didn't leave it at Starbuck's. I don't always put my keys in my purse, but I'm pretty sure I did this time. I obviously had them to drive home. Despite this, I drove to Starbucks to see if they had it. I schlepped the kids to the neighboring Jamba Juice, but no luck.

When I arrived home I was so disheartened to find that Merlin had gotten in trash, even though we have new magnetic locks. Apparently, the door appears to be securely closed when it is not. I decided to deal with that later and began to call my cell phone again. I called Starbucks and Jamba Juice and left my name and number in case it turned up. I sent an email to the girls that went out the night before. I had Mark check the car again. I called AT&T to see if anyone had made a call and then suspended my service. I canceled my Amex. It became abundantly apparent how badly I was neglecting the kids when I heard Kessler screaming bloody murder. I ran upstairs to check on him. He had soap all over both hands and he was rubbing his eyes furiously. There was very thick lather, even though there was no water. I threw his head under the faucet as he kicked and screamed. After he was calm I went back to canceling my credit cards, etc.

Mark, being the wonderful husband that he is, tried to calm me via instant messenger. I was nearly in tears at the thought of getting a new driver's license, insurance cards, etc. Then Mark said, "did you have any food in it?". Sonofabitch! I had an Odwalla bar in there from the day before. I immediately ran to the back door and opened it. There was my purse, covered in dirt, totally in tact.

I couldn't look at Merlin the rest of the day.

Twilight Zone

After much procrastinating, I finally researched and picked a new hair stylist. The one I was going to had done a thermal straightener on my hair. It was very expensive and left my hair only slightly straighter, but more unmanageable. It was extra frizzy, dry, damaged. It took me a while to accept that it was crap, so I continued to go there for my cuts and color. I paid his prices while his assistant did a lot of the work. He often left me waiting for 20 minutes or more while he tended to something else in the salon (he's the owner). Enough's enough.

I searched for salons and checked out their yelp ratings. One stylist kept coming up over and over again. The reviews were really good so I called and made an appointment. The salon where he works is a full service spa with a wine bar. It seemed impressive. I arrived a few minutes early to my appointment and it was just weird. The salon is quite a bit outdated looking--as if they were way ahead of their time with the idea of offering libations with pampering. I started to take notice of the people walking around--there were many men in their mid 50s, maybe even 60s. One was wearing a flowered shirt with khaki high water pants. It was just the weirdest thing. There were older women getting perms. There were a few younger women that you'd expect to see in a salon, but just a handful. After a few minutes one of the 60 year old men came over and called my name. He's a few inches shorter than me but he could easily place in the top 3 for a Kojak look-a-like contest.

He ended up being the nicest guy. He has a pretty thick Moroccan accent; I really had to concentrate to make sure I understood what he was saying. He talked to me about alternatives for the thermal straigthener that had been botched. He appeared to be on the cutting edge with the services he offers. He showed me photos on his iPhone of both the straighteners and extensions he had done. I was impressed. The girls could have been models solely for how wonderful their hair looked. They totally didn't look like the clientele that was frequenting the salon that day. I was shocked to find out they pay $2000 every few months to maintain their extensions!?!?

Another photo he showed me was of some guy he said was from Journey. I pondered whether I heard him correctly. I used to love Journey. After we were underway with my color he said, “Oh, there he is--the guy from Journey.” I look over and see this guy wearing a baseball cap and Poncherrello (from CHiPs) sunglasses. He makes his way over to my guy’s station and starts talking like Pepe lapue. Then he switched to John Wayne. He asks my stylist if he has time tomorrow to do his highlights. He apologizes to me for the interruption and they both walk away. He looks back and says something like, “Don’t worry, your hair will just be green when he gets back.” All I could think was this is just weeeiiird.

Later when my hair was being cut, my stylist made a comment about the song on the surround sound—it was “Wheel in the Sky” by Journey. Seventies/Eighties music had been playing the whole time.

My guy did a wonderful job with my hair. He used something on it that made is so thick and shiny; I couldn't stop touching it. He also gave me a travel size collection of Shampoo and Conditioner. His prices were 50% less than my last guy. I swear though, I just can't quite wrap my head around it all. I was totally stuck in the 80s for 2 1/2 hours. I just can't reconcile that with the quality of my hair and the very trendy photos on his iPhone.

The Kiddos..

A lot has been happening; I doubt I'll ever catch up. But, I do have two stories that I need to tell.

Makena

Makena and Mark were laying (or is it lying? I never know.) on the bed when Makena started to explain to Mark how she would like him to sleep in her bed. (She's still in a toddler bed). She recognized that he was too big, but she had a solution. She planned to take Mark to her purple house so she could get her magic wand. Then she'd make him small so he could sleep in her bed. Mark asked her how to get to her purple house. She explained that you needed to take a right at Fire Truck park and a right at Peet's coffee. Then go to the supermarket and get a sugar cookie. They had this conversation for several minutes before they worked out the details. It was quite sweet.

Kessler

The other day the kids and I were at gymnastics class. Kess and I always hang out in the observation area. He hadn't eaten breakfast particularly well so he started to get quite cranky. I borrowed a dollar from another mom (pathetic, I know) and bought some Famous Amos cookies out of the vending machine. He snuggled in and started eating them one by one. When he started to feel a bit more satisfied he got down to play, with a cookie in hand. I noticed there was one on the floor and I still had the top of the wrapper from the cookie bag; you know the corner piece you rip off? So, I handed him both and asked him to throw them away. He tried to only take the wrapper but I persisted. He wrapped his little hand around the dirty half cookie and tiny bit of wrapper and walked to the trash can. Halfway there he stopped and put the wrapper on the floor. Then he took another step and put his cookie, the good one, on the floor. Then he walked over to the trash and threw away the other cookie. He walked back past his good cookie and picked up the wrapper and took that to the trash. Then he walked back and picked up his now questionable good cookie and started munching on it.

Under normal circumstances I would have snagged the cookie and thrown it away; I even had more in the bag. But, I couldn't do it. He was so dang methodical about what he was doing; I just couldn't break the rhythm.