No Place Like Home
Matt Seinberg

As much as I like vacations, or just going away for a couple of days, being away is the hardest part, especially on the kids. Unbelievably, they miss Daphne, the cat, more than anything and truly believe that they can send her mental thoughts to let her know that they are thinking about her.

One of our neighbours comes over in the late afternoon to feed Daphne whenever we go away, and this past weekend was no exception. She texted me to let me know that she took in the mail, fed Daphne and that the dishwasher was running. Uh oh, that's a problem.

We have a repair appointment set for Monday.

I called for service on Friday. We have an appointment set for Monday on the 2-year old Maytag dishwasher. For no reason at all, it started by itself. I went to check it, today, and now it won't do anything. Only the Cancel light is on, and that's it. I'm guessing that it will need an entirely new electronic control panel. Luckily, we have the extended warranty on it.

That happened just before we left for a family party in Albany, NY, on Friday. If I didn't make the call then, it would have had to wait until Monday, and that's a couple of more days lost without the use of the dishwasher.

I didn't make the reservation or pay for the hotel we were going to stay at in Albany, so I knew nothing about it. It wasn't until we were in the car that Marcy pulled out the reservation sheet her father had given her, and told me we had a room with two full size beds.

Bells and whistles went off in my head. I let out a very loud groan of unhappiness. The last time we had full beds, we were all miserable. For two adults to sleep in a full bed is difficult to say the least, but imagine two teenage sisters trying to do it.

Michelle is a kicker when she sleeps.

Both Michelle and Melissa tend to move around a lot during the night and Michelle is a kicker. We brought along a full size air mattress, but there was no place to put it, the room was that small.

The girls decided to sleep together that first night, and all I heard was complaining in the morning. On the second night, I had them guess the number I was thinking of. The number was between 1 and 10. Whoever picked it right got the bed. It took them several guesses each, but Melissa picked number, 3, so she got the bed. Michelle slept on the floor and complained about in the morning.

I found the bed rather soft, and although I usually like it that way, there wasn't enough support for my back. It was also hard to turn over. Those extra six inches in width and six inches in length make a big difference when sleeping. I also found the pillows to be very soft, which I prefer over a firm pillow.

The hotel staffs were awesome. I intend to write about them on Yelp. Whatever we needed, they provided; extra pillows, towels and blanket. They helped us get around the area and gave us a map of restaurants in the area.

This hotel has a full staff, twenty-four hours a day.

This was the first hotel I've been to in several years that had a full staff at all hours. There were always at least two people at the front desk, and that makes for great customer service. The breakfast room also had two or three people serving, and cleaning up. I certainly didn't expect someone to come and take my plate when I was done.

No matter what, there's no place like home, especially when Daphne is waiting for us.