Gold Rush--the after-action report

Gold Rush last night was a smashing success! This is a huge annual fundraiser for the Ft. Knox OCSC (last year it brought in close to $40,000) and involves planning on a scale at least as grand as the allied invasion of Normandy. Perhaps even more so, as the Allies didn't have to worry about coordinating fake horse races, a live auction, a silent auction, a sweet shop, a general store, blackjack, poker, and a shooting gallery. And food. Oh, and dancing girls:



If you click here, you can watch the dancing girls do their thing. I think the 2 on the either end are especially fetching.

I was in charge of the "Run for the Gold," the fake auction and subsequent racing of fake horses. Here are some of this year's racers waiting patiently in my back yard to get hauled over to the club:



I decorated 2 of the horses myself. I am pleased to introduce Unikolt (The Pottery Pony), named by my sister:





and Sure Thing (The Trojan Horse), named by my (previously invisible) friend Claire:





Unikolt sold for $80 and Sure Thing went for $110. Overall, the horse auction raised $1,255, which will go towards the club's welfare budget for next year and will support many worthy causes. I'm especially delighted to announce that Sure Thing was the champion racer for the evening and won his new owner a Dell computer!

I have been tied up in knots for the past couple of weeks worrying about the math involved in figuring the odds to pay out on the winning horse: "Where a, b, c, d, e, and f represent the total amount wagered on each horse and the total equals x . . . " It was all "blah blah blah Ginger" to me. Fortunately, we had students from the Armor Officers Basic Course helping out for the night, and I got assigned a crackerjack math team:



My friend Sherri, who has decorated horses for each of the past 2 Gold Rushes, warned me not to get too attached to my ponies. I guess I didn't pay close enough attention though, because by the end of the evening I was a little sad that Unikolt and Sure Thing wouldn't be going home with me. My kitchen seems so empty without them! Fortunately, Sure Thing's owner is a friend of mine, and she has promised me liberal visitation rights.

I was happy, however, to bring home a signed first edition of Nelson Demille's latest book, which I scored for $40 in the silent auction, AND the ugliest monkeys known to man. Gaze in awe at their ugliness:



Don't you think it looks like that one monkey is puking into the leaf? You can't tell it from the pictures, but the cookie-jar monkey's head comes off when you remove the lid. I've been secretly lusting after them ever since our pricing party for the general store last week, so when Fred was looking for something to spend his gambling winnings on, I sent him off on a monkey hunt.

We didn't get home until well past midnight, and it has taken me most of the day to recover. Still, I'm glad I participated in Gold Rush . . . and I'm REALLY glad it's over!