22 July 2001: The Mo Hardness Scale

Gazing into the Abyss: Michael Rawdon's Journal

The Mo Hardness Scale

Today I drove up the East Bay to get together with Monique, who's been cavorting around California on her days off during her summer between grad school semesters. We haven't seen each other in a while (since we stopped dating, I think), and we'd each been borrowing books from the other, and it was time to, like, get the books back to their rightful owners. Mo seems pretty much the same, and I got to meet her new parakeet, Phoebe, who seems much better matched for Pigwidgeon, and the two of them seem to spend their time, well, staring into each other's eyes.

Mo also misplaced her keys, and it took us ten minutes to find them - right out in the open, of course. I did find a mysterious second pair of sunglasses lurking under her bed in the process...

We went to Barney's Gourmet Hamburgers for lunch, a restaurant that I think my friend Rob had told me about, and which Mo has recently discovered. They were pretty good! Wouldn't mind going back, although they don't have a branch farther south than Oakland. Pity.

We made the arduous trek (through traffic) into San Francisco and somehow managed to find parking in Golden Gate Park to visit the California Academy of Arts and Sciences, which Mo hadn't know about. It turns out that Mo has a thing for sharks (only one of the many straight lines that I agonized over whether to respond to) and spent a while oohing and aahing over the shark tank. Myself, I enjoyed the natural history museum as I usually do, and I got to show off a little of my peculiar - albeit not especially useful - knowledge of some paleontological trivia. Here's hoping I was accurate!

Handy tip for visiting museums: Eat lunch first. You'll enjoy the visit more, especially since museum food is usually lousy. Last time I came here, I hadn't; this time, I'm glad we did.

"Not that I'm opposed to populating the world with little versions of me..." - Mo, while we listened to a show on egg donation on the radio

The title of this entry comes from the Moh Hardness Scale, which Mo pointed out (amidst some coy chuckling) in the rocks and gems section of the museum. Aren't you glad you know? (Don't worry, it was an all-in-good-fun kind of ribbing. We're just both naturally goofy people...)

We had a good outing, all-in-all, including a drive down a scenic stretch of Route 1 afterwards, although its scenery was slightly obscured by the billowing fog rolling in off the Pacific. We resolved to see each other again before another six months have passed. Maybe if we're really crafty, we can persuade Lucy to throw another party...