Uncle Crappy is feeling a little crispy, thanks to visitors from Cleveland who kept The Wife and me out way past our bedtime Friday night. I’m not griping, mind you — we knew this was coming, and planned accordingly. Lots of water beforehand. Vitamins. Extra sleep. A solid base for lunch on Friday.

But you never can really prepare, can you?

HP and Drunk Dude arrived a little after noon, and after hearing stories about the fact that they travel as well as The Wife and I sometimes do (“I told you yesterday — stay on 80!”), and then we headed to the Warhol Museum, with a stop only so HP could buy some of those funny cigarettes she’s so fond of.

I looooove taking people through the Warhol for the first time. There are always a couple of moments where I am careful to position myself correctly, so I can watch the reactions.

IF YOU’VE NEVER BEEN TO THE WARHOL MUSEUM, AND THERE’S A CHANCE THAT YOU MIGHT HAVE UNCLE CRAPPY AS YOUR TOURGUIDE THE FIRST TIME YOU DO, SKIP DOWN A COUPLE OF GRAFS TO WHERE I SAY IT’S OK TO START READING AGAIN.

The first is generally in the Silver Clouds room, a small space on the fifth floor where several fans blow large helium-filled silver mylar pillows slowly around the room. Viewers are encouraged to go in and touch, push pillows towards each other, try to herd them into a corner. It’s consistently my favorite room in the building, and it’s the one where I have the most fun watching newcomers. I’ve seen friends smile and giggle. I’ve seen some who were bent on taking an academic approach to the museum and Warhol’s work enter and try, futilely, to resist. HP reverted instantly to childhood, smiling and immediately starting to grab the pillows and move them around the room. DD was a little more cautious, but only a little. The only slightly annoying thing on Friday was the pair of tourists who stood in the corner, near the window, and called just about everyone they knew to tell them about this weird room they found in this weird museum about Andy Warhol — you know, that guy with the soup cans? — while they were touring Pittsburgh. I mean, I give them credit for coming at all, but Jesus, at least wait to call your friends until you see all that smut in the gift shop…

Or when you see the piss paintings.

That’s the unofficial-but-ubiquitous name for a series of canvases that Warhol coated with metallic paint and his own urine and then left to weather the process of oxidization. They’re pretty cool: Big and small splatter patterns, drips and runs, all a rainbowy series of copper colors. the fun comes when newbies read how the paintings were made. HP laughed a little and then walked over to say she thought she smelled something funny. DD smiled and shook his head. Both solid reactions; I’ve seen people actually cringe and move away quickly, and I’ve seen disgust and, believe it or not, anger. Warhol is relatively tame by the standards of many modern artists, like some on display at this very moment at the Carnegie International show in Oakland; but clearly, he’s still way beyond much of his own hometown.

OK. IT’S SAFE. THE REST OF THE POST IS ABOUT DRINKING.

The Wife finished work and headed down into town about the time we were wrapping up our spin through the museum. We met at the fucking Omni William Penn hotel downtown, where we stole two rooms for about $85 each (does anyone else think Hotwire is the coolest thing ever?). Seriously. A scruffy group like us had no business staying in a palace like the Omni. Marble around the bathtubs. Hot and cold running cocktails, although we didn’t avail ourselves. And taxis everywhere, which turned out to be a good thing.

Because HP wanted to see Pittsburgh’s church of beer, we headed to Church Brew Works for dinner. We all had several glasses of some of their seasonals (a German bock, a hefty old English ale and a killer pepper-infused IPA) along with the always excellent food. Still thirsty, we got another cab and headed to the South Side (even the cab ride was fruitful, with our cabbie showing us a shortcut that took us straight from Lawrenceville through the Hill District [“This is where all the black people live,” he helpfully pointed out] and spitting us out at the Birmingham Bridge and Carson Street.

We got dropped at Fathead’s, with its mind-boggling beer selection. We stayed there for a couple … and then things get a little hazy. We tried to get into the Tiki Lounge, but there was a cover. We spent several beers next door at Smokin’ Joe’s, where we did some drunk dialing and marveled at the college kids. There was a stop at another bar whose name I can’t recall … and then after getting directions over the phone from Toland, we finished at Piper’s Pub.

The last few minutes on Carson were spent trying to find a place that would sell us some beer to take back to the hotel. This has everything to do with the ridiculous liquor laws in Pennsylvania, and I think I’ve ranted about this before … but in this case, the fact that we couldn’t find more beer probably turned out to be a good thing, as we were sloppy enough. We found a cab to take us back downtown, where things fell apart quickly. DD, inspired by our earlier visit to the Warhol, began taking avant garde video of the hotel, running down the hall taping, getting Dutch-angle detail shots of, um, everything, and then falling off one of the beds, I think while still taping.

And then we all went to bed.

Breakfast came around 12:30 at Ritter’s Diner (not bad, but not great — my chili omelet was good, but HP’s corned-beef hash came out of a can), and then we split up for the afternoon. The Clevelanders went shopping at the Strip, and The Wife and I drove to Monroeville to pick up her skis. We then drove down to the South Hills home of DD’s mom and step-father, who mercifully weren’t home, had dinner at a little pizza joint on Route 19 and tried to stay awake while we drove back home.

Today was slow. The Wife spent the day on the couch with the cat. I would have been there too, if I hadn’t had to go to work. I had to write a couple stories and some court stuff, but I had plenty of time to watch the Grammy awards (did you catch the Janis Joplin tribute by Joss Stone and Melissa Etheridge? Holy shit … that’s what all music should sound like). I get to go home soon. Sleep a little more. As I’ve noted before, I’m pleased to find that I can still deal with the occasional binge … it’s just that it now takes an entire weekend to recover from my weekends.

To HP and Drunk Dude: Remember — baseball season is coming soon…