September 01, 2002 - 6:51 p.m.

simon's hair is getting longer. his cowlicks have grown more noticeable. i offered my haircutting services today, but he declined, stating that we didn't have enough time. i reminded him that we never had time the last time he needed a haircut, and his hair was really bad for a long time. he ended up having a very good but expensive haircut in an actual salon. not wanting it to get to that stage again, we both decided that a quick trim was in order.

i put the folding chair and scissors outside. then i put a bright orange hooded sweater over my blue and black plaid pajamas and threw on my puma sneakers. i had very, very bad bed hair.

we went outside, and i was about to cut his hair when i noticed a nail sticking out of the corrugated metal "fence" that separates our yard from the neighbor's. i decided this would come in handy for hanging a mirror (just like they do in a real beauty parlor!), so i went back to the house to fetch one. only the door wouldn't open. stupid me didn't know our back door was deadlocked.

i'd never lived in a house with a deadlock until now. i knew the front door worked this way, which is why we keep a spare set of keys right near it, for when we need to empty recycling or get the newspaper - quick trips when you don't want to be locked out of the house. i had no idea the back door was like this because it had a separate deadbolt, so i thought closing it wouldn't cause a problem. wrong.

we have no spare key buried under any plants. our rental company has an extra key, but i chose sunday to lock us out of the house. of course, their answering machine was not hooked up to any sort of paging or emergency system. in the end, simon had to call a locksmith, which cost $132. as if we can afford anything extra at the moment.

while we waited for the locksmith, i took the time to begin weeding our garden in my lovely attire. it was quite a big project, but we made some good progress. the weather here has been absolutely amazing the past two weeks, so we couldn't have picked a nicer day to get stuck outside. i just hope it stays this way for the wedding.

today is father's day in australia. after going back inside and cleaning up, we went to simon's parents' house for a visit. simon's mum served us tea and coffee with the fancy set of china. weird. i suppose she thinks of us as guests now. i had a lot of fun looking through old photo albums and getting ideas. i wonder if they had any idea how dated their wedding photos would look now? i suppose there's no avoiding it, really.