Retired. Yeah, Right.

re •tired (ri-tIrd) adj. Withdrawn from one's occupation, business, or office; having finished one's active working life; withdrawn from active participation; go into retirement.

I don't think I have a real strong grasp of the whole 'retirement' thing. It's been eighteen months. You'd think I'd understand it by now. Dick, on the other hand, took only two weeks to fully get the hang of retired life. First, he does this: (notice the freshly rototilled dirt and the lack of construction debris?) And then, he does this:
I, however, spent my week working on the 9th Annual Ventura PAL Golf Tournament. Monday I organized raffle and silent auction items. Tuesday and Wednesday I put together golf packets - envelopes with raffle tickets, putting contests, and mulligans (basically a "do over"; golfers pay $5 for the privilege of pretending one of their more elegant shots never happened. Kind of a magic wand for duffers.)
And Thursday. Thursday afternoon was spent stuffing tee bags. We had originally planned the stuffing party for Wednesday - leaving Thursday free for date day - but, uhmmm, somebody forgot to order the tee bags. Or the bags got a better offer and decided to go to Hawaii. Whatever, they didn't show up. Fortunately, the local paper donated replacements and we got the job done only one day behind schedule.

Friday dawned bright and early - literally. I was up at 4:30 and on the road at 5:45. And bright? Well, not exactly. More like foggy and damp. Typical Ventura beach weather. Remember Kevin from last Thursday? (Everybody wave to Kevin.) Kevin was there and so was Marie.
One of the highlights of my day was waking Marie up so she could join in the fun. She loves being up early in the morning. Not. Marie and Jackie were in charge of selling raffle tickets. And I have to give them credit - those girls can sell tickets! Although Marie kept trying to tell people that the tickets were $1 each or 10 tickets for $15 (rather than 15 for $10). She got some very strange looks.

Was it all worth it? You bet! We sold almost all of the 144 golf spots and signed up a second Title Sponsor. (Thanks very much to Title Sponsors Aera Energy and RW Hertel & Sons. You guys are great!) Although the overall total won't be available until next week, we took in over $6500 today from the sale of raffle tickets, silent auction items, mulligans, etc. Once expenses are paid - and that shouldn't be a large amount since most everything is donated - the proceeds will benefit the kids of Ventura through the Ventura Police Activities League and the City of Ventura's PEAK after school program.

And did I mention that planning for next year's tournament begins on Tuesday?