Okay, so I get back from the beach, my body a mellow melanin melange, ready to take on the world. An early start and I'm airborne to scenic Pittsburgh.

Right.

Okay, I don't wish to be completely mean, but in the pantheon of great American cities, I think Pittsburgh missed the list. Nothing against the people, of course, or certain aspects of the town itself. From far away, Pittsburgh looks really cool. Nestled between the intersection of two rivers (the idiotic decision to say that "3 rivers" intersect there would only be true if Pittsburgh sat atop a giant natural drain which sucked three rivers into a giant hole...) the city rises from a series of vallies like some tribute to modernity. Combined with the fact that it was built from money from coal, and you get a turn-of-the-century coolness that isn't matched when you inspect up close.

For starters, every building is covered in a thick layer of grime. It's disgusting. I'm not sure why several of the oldest buildings are so encrusted, but you'd think that there'd be a way to clean it off. Maybe it's some irrecversible chemical reaction. According to some sites it can be cleaned off though, it just hasn't yet. Several other pro-pittsburgh sites note that the grime was scrubbed off "decades ago" which is clearly erroneous. Note to Pittsburgh fans: raise some money and cleaa the whole town up.

Rather than continue to bust on Pittsburgh let me give a brief highlight: the Original Hot Dog Shop or "The O" as it is better known, kicks some serious ass. If you're going to the City of Grime you might as well stop by the dirty O and snag some hot dogs and some french fries. Without the O I'd say the city was seriously lacking but the O managed to save the experience for me, despite being frustrated that the "strip district" contained few if any strip clubs. It did contain some rather scantily clad skanky biker chicks attempting to get us to purchase cheap beer. For some reason, my wedding-party friends didn't seem interested in their wares, despite my pleadings.

I caught up to them checking out some books outside a book store, right when 5 guys on harleys rode up with authority. Talk about your wacky, "why am I here" moment! Eventually though, we ended up at the O and enjoyed some tasty food, so all's well that ends well.

As bad as Pittsburgh was, it was a social mecca compared with Harmarville, which seemed like a weird doppelganger of North Adams, Mass sans modern-art galleries, of course. Although again, just like in Pittsburgh, the people were quite friendly, the town itself just lacked some basic things. The movie theatre had closed and moved two towns over, and there weren't any great places to shop for essential items like watch bands and cell phones. (I'll explain later.)

Much likc the City of Grime having the O, Harmarville had one highlight, only it wasn't in Harmarville, it was in the town two towns over. Regardless, it was a giant used cd/dvd store akin to the Soundgarden up in Fells Point, B-more, Maryland. The guy who owned it was really helpful and if I hadn't spent the day avoiding the wedding party people due to a hotel idiocy I probably would've ruled the day a success. 5 cds purchased for $20 was good, considering.

The hotel made me rethink the day, however. I show up fairly early, before noon, that is. I check in and while doing so inquire about the rates. They quote me a rate that doesn't reflect any sort of discount, which ticks me off. They also make me wait to move into my room. I see some packages behind the counter and I ask what they're for seconds before I'm supposed to get my key and leave. The guy replies that they're for a wedding party. I respond that maybe I'm in the wedding party, and he asks what wedding I'm with. I tell him and he says, "Oh, yeah, I guess you should get one of these."

So Mr. I'm Smoking Crack and didn't realize you were in The Wedding Party gives me my key without apologizing and I go to my room. Seeing that the other bags hadn't been picked up I figure I was the first to arrive. So I catch a movie and then return to my room. Still no message on the voicemail, so I figure no one else has arrived. I go buy my cds and then get dinner. Still no messages on my voicemail, or on my cellphone. So I go back to my room and watch some tv before giving up late in the evening.

Later that night I dimly remember the phone ringing. I look over later to see if they left a voicemail but the blinky light doesn't show anything. Thinking it was all a dream, I go back to sleep.

It turns out that a couple people were there, but the stupid hotel voicemail system didn't work, so they couldn't leave a message. Why the guy at the front desk didn't tell me would've surprised me, if not for the fact that he also screwed me rate-wise and failed to see if I was in the wedding party at all. What an idiot. So I blew all of Friday messing around instead of hanging with my friends. Oh, well.

Saturday was fun, at least, with the consumption of food taking a large amount of time and energy. I ran into everyone else during breakfast and discovered that there was only one other person from DC. She was spoken for, so I merely made polite conversation. Later, after even more eating there was a group softball game which was cool right up to the part where I hit into a double play to end the whole thing. On the bright side I did score a couple runs and played decently, so things weren't that bad, though we did lose. Later we moved to a country club and I was excited to see we could go swimming. Since I had a couple pairs of extra board shorts (fresh from my second beach vacation in two weeks) I grabbed a towel and jumped in.

Shock of water awakens me. Shock of board shorts containing wallet, chap-stick and cell-phone awakens me further. Overall it was a $150 dip into a pool.

I took the phone out, but I knew it was toast. Even those crafty scandinavians have yet to build a great water-proof phone. So I sucked it up, tossed the hunk of junk on a table and dove back in to enjoy a bone-crushing game of 5 on 5 water basketball, where the "no blood no foul" rules seemed to be in effect. We won, eventually, though more egos and bodies were bruised in that hour long attack than at any point during the weekend.

I blew a few minutes after the game disassembling my phone and then gave it up as a lost cause. Dinner was enjoyable, although I didn't have enough time to talk to all of my friends who were there. The only weird part was being called a "heathen" by some guy who insisted that part of the hebrew blessing be read in English. The part that said that you were either with Israel or a heathen. A weird choice of what to translate, as several people noted.

So a little Saturday night fun took place, ending up with a select crew at the local Harmarville 24-hour restaurant named "Kings". We didn't get thrown out, although I swear we were being much roudier than the last time I got ejected from a waffle house. I'm glad I didn't have to serve us Sunday morning...although I will say it was nice to be there with the groom, an overall cool guy, as well as several other cool people who shall remain nameless.

Sunday. Wedding Day. This was when I went into Pittsburgh with some friends (I ditched the people I'd promised to accompany into the big city earlier that morning at Kings...although one of them thoughtfully send me a text message to my non-functional cell-phone asking if I wanted to come with them...) and ate at the dirty O. We got back with just one and a half hours before game time. Plenty of time for me to shower and dress, right?

At least I thought so. So I screwed around a bit, grabbing an ironing board (which I didn't need) and watching a little tv. Next thing I know the hour is up and I strolled outside to discover that everyone had gone. I mean, everyone. I flipped for a second, realizing that I would have to drive my own car to the wedding, a fate worse than death.

On a completely different note, be sure to check out the latest relationship column over on the advice side of the website. I'm going to get Brad and Helena to chime in as soon as they are able, though both are currently in their secret undisclosed locations. We'll see.

I have met my boyfriends parents twice and both times seemed to have gone pretty smooth. The problem is that I dont know what to talk about when I am around his parents. My boyfriend said it would be nice if I could talk to his mom more when I see her and to kind of spend a little time with her so we can get to know each other. What are some good conversation starters and what should I talk to her about because this is all new to me?

Sincerely,
A Curious Conversationalist



Helena replies:

Edward replies:

Well, there are a whole host of things you can talk about. I'm a little curious about your statement that this "is all new to you" because it implies that you haven't spoken to anyone in a long time. Unless you were born a mute, you should just get to know his parents as you would any other strangers. At first, I'd refrain from making fun of them or appearing rude. No cursing, you know the drill.

As long as you don't make any major faux pas on the etiquette front, you can talk about almost anything. I say almost because you probably want to skip the politics/religion quagmires. If you want to talk about some local sports teams, that's good, but it helps to get a heads up from your boyfriends so you don't make a verball gaffe and end up alienating them both.

If you want to get to know his mom (or, rather, if your boyfriend wants you to get to know his mom) then ask your boyfriend what his mother enjoys talking about. If she's into gardening, ask her about that. If she gets really fired up about movies or her job, ask her about that. The trick is actually being genuinely interested in learning about his parents, or at least seeming like you are. If you have no desire to get to know either of them, I'd suggest you fake it. Insert sexist joke here.

Brad replies:

The first rule of going on a trip is don't go for a swim with your cell phone.

The second rule of going on a trip is don't go for a swim with your cell phone.

With that said, showing up late for a 6:30 am flight that you awoke for at 4:30 in the morning after having only taken 2 hours of rest is also a big pill to swallow. Fortunately, I had a fifty pound bag of stuff on my back, and another 20 pounds in my right/left hand, depending on where I was. Yesterday was not fun.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I started out at the beach. Virginia Beach, to be precise. It was warm and sunny and the water was perfect. There were a few too many jellyfish, in my not-so-humble opinion, but most were so small that they didn't even sting you. The waves were nice and high several of the days, which was fun. And my vitamin D level finally approached the proper level for summertime. I had managed to secure a decent base the weekend before, so hopefully I'll manage to last without significant fading into the fall season. We'll see how that goes.

Plenty of mindless hours were spent reading, catching some rays and enjoying life in the ocean. Nothing major happened. Just a good wholesome week of nothing. It's always best to have some nothing time available every so often, just to detox off of life itself. No worries, no ringing cell phone, no e-mail. No nothing. It's a good feeling when you can control your temperature by going into the ocean or lying on the sand, and when the biggest decision is what particular fish to eat for dinner.

Minor annoyance number one was that my cell phone was roaming in VA Beach. AT&T Wireless evidently doesn't have coverage down there, and the last time I roamed on the system I ended up blowing almost $100, so I was loathe to repeat said error. Consequently, even though my phone would ring, I didn't pick it up until later...much later. I didn't check my voicemail all that often, because I kept hoping nothing really bad was happening. As it turned out, nothing did. Now, however, I have to go back and track down all the people who thought I was around and make amends for not returning their phone calls/e-mail in a timely manner.

Minor annoyance number 2: Virginia Beach is great for unwinding. Maybe a little too great. If you like working on your tan, you're set. (Which means I was fine.) If you want to rip up the town with a bevy of scantily clad, of-age women, you might want to look elsewhere. Enough said. No stories, in this case, is a good thing.

Minor annoyance number 3: checking my e-mail with pop commands from a remote location after I got back from the beach. I know this is fairly geeky, but using pop commands to check your e-mail is a tough road to hoe, especially when you've got 140 new messages in your box. Fortunately, I didn't have much time to do this, because as soon as I finished my beach trip I departed for a wedding in Pittsburgh. Which will occupy part II of the digression.

Whoops!

I meant to write an explanatory note detailing my absence for the past week...it's the longest time I've gone for over a year without posting anything. But I didn't have the ability.

Stories to be posted shortly, after I read all of my e-mail, etc.