BBM/UPS/FRA to USA

Sounds like a bunch of jibberish, huh? Well this is what I have been doing this morning. First, I get a BBM (blackberry messenger) from our dear friend who is in France. She is trying to ship a swim suit to Mark (who is in Newport Beach, CA). This suit is the suit that Mark has chosen to race in next week. The manufacturer is actually in Japan... Are you following me? Okay, here it is more simply:

Mark's friend is sponsored by a Japanese company. Mark borrowed this friend's suit a few weeks ago and LOVED racing in it. So, he asked his friend to borrow one. This friend is currently racing at a different meet in Europe right now, so it is up to us wives and girlfriends to get the job done. The suit was shipped from Japan to France and now we (the wife and the girlfriend) are trying to get it from France to California as to not burden the boys with the task while they are focusing on fast swimming. What would they do without us?!

So I get a BBM from our friend (the girlfriend) in France. She asks me to set up a UPS account so that she can ship the suit to Mark. I do so and send the UPS account info to her. She tries to set up the shipment but has trouble. Technical error. Ugh x a million. I hate technology and evidently this hatred is a worldwide phenonmenon because our friend BBMs me to tell me that the computer is 'killing' her. After a phone call to UPS (USA) and a retreival of the phone number for UPS (France) she is able to use our newly created UPS account to set up a shipment for Mark's suit.

We BBM back and forth a while longer to confirm phone numbers, zip codes and account numbers. All for a tiny little suit.

I cannot express how thankful I am for all of our friends around the world that have a hand in Mark's career. I told our friend that Mark should definitely dedicate his swims next week to her and her family.

So, when you watch Mark's races on the computer next week (I know all of you will be glued to results just like me, right?), notice the little suit that he is wearing. It is a special suit that will have experienced quit a journey just to land on his rear end for less than a minute (fingers crossed for a sub-1-minute race) of swimming.

And you thought a suit was just a suit...