Two years ago I bought a lovely big desk for our tiny home. Last month I swallowed my pride and told Al I was buying a new desk. A smaller one. That hurt. I hate spending money on decorating stuff when I could be spending it on bicycle stuff.
Before we moved to Miami, I spent a lot of energy trying to fit in. My friends cared about decorating, remodeling, and gardening. I gave it a shot. Final report: I suck at that kind of domestic stuff.
In Miami, fitting in is just less important. In a small town, being different makes you stand out. Everybody knows who you are, and you quickly recognize that this is not a good thing. In Miami, or any big city for that matter, being different is pretty insignificant. (Numbers count. As Bill Gates once said, "In China when you're one in a million, there are 1300 people just like you.”)
Being an older couple on road bikes makes us stand out some. Few people in our building know our name. They usually call us "the bicycle people" but in Miami that isn't a bad thing at all.
So today I will fix my little but annoying decorating mistake. Later we'll noodle around the neighborhood on our slow bikes, then watch stage 2 of the Tour de Pologne (Tour of Poland), rooting for Kittel to win the sprint. Maybe I'll even have time to work on the routes we'll ride on an upcoming trip to Apalachicola.
Life is good.
