On Thursday Nellie and I stepped into a bit of a different world. Through a work connection we somehow ended up at the ROM as guests for a charity event supporting Camp Oochigeas, a getaway camp in Muskoka for kids with cancer. It was our first time at a shindig like this and, while a little weird for us, it was a ton of fun.

The evening started with cocktails, the most delicious Kobe beef sliders I’ve ever tasted and a silent auction on dozens, maybe hundreds of items ranging from individual bottles of wine to trips, TVs, celebrity-designed paddles and many more. The one item that caught our eye was a painting, provided by Canvas Jam. The Pollock-esque painting had been done by Ooch kids, and it had the extremely rare quality of appealing to both Nellie and I. Seriously, we never like the same art, and that it had a backstory this special made it pretty appealing to us. We made an initial bid, and agreed on a limit for later when the bidding really heated up.

The crowd was moved into the main hall for dinner, introductory remarks and a virtually never-ending supply of wine. The emcee for the evening was Q107’s John Derringer, and he pointed out Beverly Thomson and Mike Komisarek (to whom, as a Habs fan, I am obliged to say: “boooo!”) in the crowd, but the real star of the night was a young lady named Heidi Hayes.

Heidi is an energetic, athletic, ridiculously charming girl who’s done some acting (including a part in The History Of Violence) and who happens to be recovering from some form of cancer that I can’t remember and couldn’t pronounce if I did. She was, of course, a former Ooch camper and was there to tell her story. Needless to say, by the end of her story the crowd was standing, clapping and shedding a few tears, utterly charmed by miss Hayes and unlikely to ever forget her. As Mr. Derringer pointed out after returning to the microphone, so long as Heidi is willing to tell her story for Ooch they’ll never have trouble raising the funds they need.

Those funds, in this particular case, were for their Summer Dreams program. Since so many kids are unable to get away from the hospital or their families for two weeks, Ooch is coming to them, building a location near the Toronto hospital district. To that end, the evening features a live auction for some premium items to go along with the silent auction and general donations throughout the evening. And this is where it got fun.

Somewhere between the $15,000 it took to win a Muskoka getaway and round of golf with Bobby Orr, and the $13,000 bid on a 52-bottle fridge filled with some unbelievable wines (1990 Lafite anybody?), we realized that we simple folk from farm and military base were faaaaaar from home. But damn, it was fun. One table spent $40,000 on 3 lots. I don’t know where those guys work but I hope they’re hiring.

Anyway, with that excitement done, we were in for a little of our own. We got back to the silent action. Somebody had bid very aggressively on our painting, but we matched. Then he threw up another big bid. We snuck one more bid in at the last minute, and he came back, ready to bid again. Nellie shrewdly engaged him in conversation as they compared notes about who wanted it more. While they discussed it the staff came around and collected the books with the winning bids…so I guess we wanted it more!

We were now the proud owners of some Ooch art (sorry for the shaky iPhone pic). I immediately began to worry that this wouldn’t seem like such a great idea the next (sober) morning, but there’s been no buyer’s remorse as yet. We’ll pick it up next week but we already have a few walls in mind. Oh, and T-Bone won dinner at Nota Bene, so we all made out well.

Overall a really fun, interesting night with good friends for a fantastic cause. And art! Hard to beat that.