25Aug2008: Day 92: Bank Holiday? What bank is worth celebrating?

Today was a bank holiday. Yes, a bank holiday. No banks are open and everyone gets off from work. (apparently, Teri thinks she gets a day off from the blog as well, since I, Chris, am doing it today) A Bank Holiday is not in celebration of anything I can figure out, but it is a holiday. This is the epitome of where the world is going, soon Christmas will no longer be Christmas, but Winter Bank Holiday. I guess they are forgetting to be sensitive to all the people out there who don't use banks...maybe it will one day be just "don't go to work day", no...no...no...that isn't sensitive to those people who don't work. How about just "breathe day", yes, that works, everyone has to breathe. That should be inclusive enough, but it might be insensitive to those people who live in smoggy cities, who really shouldn't be thinking so hard about the quality of their breath. So, I guess we are left with, sit, they'll call it " sit on it " day. Ugh, what about people without butts. It's a small minority, but there are probably some out there who got shot their butts shot off during the war...it would truly be insensitive to forget about the buttless.

Ok, so, bottom line, and all that really matters in the end: I didn't have to work today. So, we had a day together as a family. Teri's Church was having a picnic at a park down by the river, aptly named: Riverside park. So, we went to that after having a leisurely morning around the house picking up and me doing some paper work.

I had received a box of mail last week and found that my bank had determined that I didn't have collision insurance on my cars and they had decided, after sending me three letters (all of which were in the box), that they would add on a $3300 insurance fee (for one year) onto my car loan. I had talked with my insurance company before we left and they had told me that I can "withdraw the cars from use" for the year we will be gone and not driving them to save some money. I didn't realize this meant taking of collision coverage, nor did I realize that my loans required this coverage. So my Bank (Visions Credit Union) decided that I was being naughty and graciously sent me three warning letters and then put this insurance on my car.

I immediately called the bank insurance office and the lady on the line told me to call the loan office and see if they would let me have an exemption. (Apparently, this is pretty common with sports cars and what not that people put in storage for the winter). Before I hung up I asked her: "you know, I have my phone setup so that I can receive calls on my local number here in the UK, I never received a call." I couldn't believe her response: "We never called you." I asked her somewhat incredulously, "Why not?!". She said in a defiant tone: "Do you know how many calls I would have to make if I had to call everyone who is having problems with their insurance? I would be on the phone all day!". My response to her was: "So your one minute of time calling me is worth more than the $3300 you are trying to take from me!" Click! Don't be stupid with me lady. To be honest, I was actually much kinder than this, but I wish I had said that...

So, after calling the bank loan office, I have to write a letter now to request the exemption. Ah well, easily done, hopefully, it is a no brainer for them and everything will work out fine. But, I am putting a bit of "I can't believe your system works this way!" in the letter. Funny thing is, they send my bank statements through on e-mail, which I did to at their request to save them money, but they send me 4 regular mail letters when it is going to cost me money, send me e-mail! Save your stupid $0.41 x 4. Stupid. Who's that comedian that says: "Here's your stupid sign!" I feel like I've been writing jokes for him lately.

Back to the picnic. It was fun enough. The burgers were good, not like the meat we have back home, but still good enough. Makenna ate chips, that's it. She ate a whole burger at the zoo the other day, but today she would have nothing to do with it. She ran around kicking a ball and smiling like the cutest thing that ever lived, so, I had fun watching her. She is really just a joy to watch, I have never in my life enjoyed watching someone like I like watching her. Like tonight, she was sitting on this "stop and go, stop and go, hear the school bus whistle blow" or whatever it says...a plastic bus...and she was scooting around on it. She was just hamming it up for her Mom and Dad and it was just so impossibly cute that it just makes me forget about any other thing going on. It feels good to just study her and realize how incredibly blessed we are to have her.

I was away this last week up in Bedford again, maybe Teri mentioned it, and I can actually see changes in Makenna over this week. She is much more verbal and communicating than she was just a week prior. I think she is less frustrated as well because we are actually understanding her. If we just repeat what she says and put a "no" after it, she says "ok. ok. ok." because she knows that we understand. We say the "no" again and she realizes that we are not going to let her do it, so then she gets upset, but it is not the same kind of upset that she used to have, the frustrated upset. Now, it is "gator" tears upset, where she is faking crying. She is quite an actress as well, her whole faces gets into the cry, she should give acting lessons, I'm serious...academy award.