Tuesday, June 15, 1993

This was not my day. Almost everything I tried to do went awry. I started out confident of accomplishing three things: get my hair cut, order a pair of glasses to replace the ones I lost at Playa del Coco, and copy and mail the log. I had also intended to drop off our film for developing, but I forgot to take it with me.
Got off the bus at the wrong stop, so I had to walk a couple of blocks to the place I was going to for a haircut. The woman who cut my hair totally butchered it, so now my hair looks worse than Roy's (he got scalped in Miami Beach).
Looked in the phone book for a good place to make copies. There was a Kinko's at 6318 NW 9th Ave., so I decided to go there. Also looked up optical shops and selected one at 1744 N. Federal Highway. Checked the bus map to try to figure out how to get to these places. Optiworld was closer, so I got on a bus to go there. Got off the bus in the 1700 block. Unfortunately, I got off on Sunrise Boulevard instead of North Federal. Rather than wait half an hour for the next bus, I walked the eight blocks to Optiworld. They quoted me a price that was a lot higher than I wanted to pay, so I left.
Set out to try to find NW 9th Avenue. Unfortunately, many streets in Fort Lauderdale have two names. I realized later that the bus had gone right down NW 9th Avenue, but I didn't know it, because the street sign showed a different name.
Finally gave up looking for NW 9th Avenue and took a bus downtown. At the terminal, I found another phone book and checked the address of Kinko's. This was a more recent directory; it showed two Kinko's, and the second was a block and a half from where I'd gotten my hair cut. Terrific.
Took a bus to Kinko's. By then it was 3 o'clock, and I hadn't eaten lunch. I was starving, so I went to Burger King and had chicken nuggets and a strawberry shake. Then I walked a block and a half to Kinko's. The type of machine I wanted to use was in use, and there were people waiting, so I decided to go back to the boat. We wanted to have an early supper so we could go to the Jai Alai games tonight.
When I got to the boat, Roy was gone. He'd left a note saying Lee and his wife from the Pyxis had come by, and he'd gone over there to visit them.
Fortunately, Roy returned at five. We ate a fast supper and caught the bus to the Jai Alai games. Got there just a few minutes after they'd started.
Neither of us had ever watched Jai Alai before, so we had no idea how it was played, but it was easy to figure out all but the fine points. The players take turns flinging a small white ball against the end wall, using long curved things strapped to their right arms. The other player has to catch the rebounding ball with his curved thing, either in mid-air or after the first bounce, and fling it back against the wall. If one misses or takes two bounces, the other player scores a point. The ball traveled so fast, I often couldn't see it. The players had to have terrific eye-hand coordination, and they had to anticipate what the ball would do.
We left right after the seventh game started, partly because the air-conditioning was too cold, and partly because we wanted to get back to the boat before the buses stopped running. It was a little after nine, but we had to wait about 40 minutes for the #1 bus. We got to the transfer point after the last #40 bus had gone by. We could have walked the last 3 or 4 miles, but Roy's new sandals were irritating his feet, so we took a cab. It was a nice comfortable cab. Cost $5.