All About Bipolar

Posted By atorturedsoul on June 22, 2009

I’m back! We had a great time even though the heat index was over 100 degrees and there were a few minor incidents.

We arrived on Thursday afternoon and checked in to our hotel and got settled. We then went to get something to eat at Chili’s and came back and let the kids swim for awhile. When we went back to our room, we noticed that it was quite warm. We turned the thermostat down and it still didn’t move. My husband called the front desk and they told us to turn it off for two minutes so it could reset. We did and then waited a while to see if it would cool off. It didn’t. Around midnight, we were changing rooms. It was cooler in the new room so we all settled down to go to sleep around 1 AM.

Friday morning, we wake up and everyone starts to get ready and the toilet will not flush. I told my husband to tell maintenance to fix it while we were gone for the day. We came back in the afternoon and it still wasn’t fixed so we called them again. The guy came up and plunged it and said it should be fine. Well, it wasn’t. We went to the desk on our way to the pool and told them it still didn’t work. Around 9:30, maintenance found us at the pool and said they couldn’t fix it because something was stuck in the neck and it would have to be pulled. He said they would move us to another room-room 1112. I told him that was the room they moved us from last night because the air didn’t work. They put us in another room. The air was off so we turned it on and waited for an hour for it to cool off. The room was still 80 degrees.

Now I have breathing problems and I had to use my inhaler because I couldn’t breathe in there. My husband said he would call the desk. I told him to tell them I wanted the night and the next night refunded to my card and I would move to another one of their properties right across the street. The hotel we were staying in was a Pear Tree Inn on Market Street in Saint Louis, which is part of the Drury Inn brand. We moved to the Drury Inn Union station which was a block from the Pear Tree.

I will say that the entire staff at the Pear Tree Inn was extremely nice and tried to help as much as they could. They even tried to refund Thursday night but my husband told them we didn’t mind paying because we did stay that night. The property used to be a Hampton Inn and Drury had just bought it and opened it under the Pear Tree name a week or two before we stayed there. They had no idea that the hotel had so many issues but they are working on it and I am sure it will all be taken care of as quickly as possible.

The Drury Inn company is intent on satisfying their customers. They were very happy to give us the same rate at the Drury Inn that we received at the Pear Tree Inn. The company comped all of our charges at Pear Tree, charged us the same rate for Friday and Saturday at the more expensive hotel as the other hotel, and they are sending me a voucher for a free night’s stay. This was above and beyond what we asked for. I only wanted them to charge me the same rate for all three nights and clear what we owed Friday night at the other hotel and just charge me for that night at the second hotel.  Yet, they gave us Thursday night free and gave us another night free for a future visit on top of charging us the same rate.

The staff at both hotels were extremely apologetic and went out of their way to make up for our inconvenience. (We had to move three times after we checked in.) Regardless, the service was excellent and I wouldn’t hesitate to stay in another Pear Tree Inn or any of the Drury Inn properties. I know if something is wrong they will certainly make it right.

Anyway, despite it all we had a great trip. We visited the Saint Louis Zoo and Grant’s Farm on Friday. That night, we ate at Syberg’s and tried shark. (It melts in your mouth!) Saturday, we went to the Anheuser Busch Brewery and took the tour and then picnicked at Turtle Park before visiting the Science Center. We took a leisurely stroll through Union Station and ended up eating there. On Sunday, we drove around downtown and saw the Gateway Arch and then entered into Illinois and rode through the quaint little town of Cahokia. (Actually, they call it a village.) We went through Arnold and ate at Jack in the Box (we don’t have them here in Tennessee) before heading to Cape Girardeau and walking down to the floodwalls. The river was only two feet away from the walls and they probably closed the flood gates today because the river still hadn’t crested.

We got home around 8:00 PM last night and I was very happy to see my dogs. Don’t get me wrong, they love their sitter who stays with them when we’re out of town but they are always happy to see us come home. My oldest dog doesn’t eat much while we’re away but she doesn’t like to travel that far, either. We took her to Saint Louis when she was about 5 months old and she stayed sick the whole time we were there. She doesn’t like hotels.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. We came home to a bunch of mail with bad news. Our mortgage company informed us that our escrow account was estimated to have a deficit for the upcoming year and our mortgage will go up over $200 in August. Even if we pay the entire deficit (which I can’t), it is going to go up over $100 a month. It has never gone up over $20 in a year and our property taxes haven’t changed. I can’t afford the new payment so we’re not sure what we are going to do. It’s absolutely ridiculous. My husband lost between $700 and $800 a month in income several months ago because of layoffs and cutbacks at work. We are making our bills, but that’s about it. We used his vacation check to pay for our trip to Saint Louis and now we wished we hadn’t. I mean, if we had known that was going to happen we would have saved that money.

I opened my credit card statement this morning and they say I missed a payment last month. I looked back through my book. Each month, I write down the amount of each bill and when it is due. When I pay it, I write down the amount I pay and the date. I scheduled the payment online for that card on June 5. It was due June 9 so it had plenty of time to process. I paid that bill and several others on the same day. I am going to have to check my bank statement to see if they did indeed process the scheduled payment because their site says I never scheduled one…but I DID! Now they want me to pay this month and last month’s payment and a huge late fee. I have never paid late and I know I set up that payment.

Good grief. I have written over 1300 words. I need to wrap it up.

Have a good day! I have things to figure out.

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Categories: My Personal Experiences
Tags: about, all, bipolar, Drury, escrow, mortgage, Pear Tree, Saint Louis