Donations and tributes

I took Liz Huesemann to the Eblen Charities dinner and auction last night. My four necklace and earring sets sold for between $40 and $60, and I paid $230 for a beautifully framed print of Babe Ruth's farewell for Rob's birthday (which isn't until July, but he doesn't read blogs, so I'm not afraid).

I got into a bidding war. What I really want is to put the print on the wall in the room where Mike spent his final days. He loved, loved, loved the Yankees -- as much as Iove the Red Sox. I wasn't going to go over $175, but I really wanted the print and the money goes to Eblen, which helped Mike more than that so when it went up, I went higher -- $5 at a time.

Finally, I met the person who was going against me and he asked about my interest in it. I told him where I want to hang it and why, and he smiled and walked away. Mike would call it playing the dead kid card. Perhaps it was, but we got it bid up pretty good.

I love that my jewelry made $200 for Eblen too. Maybe next year I'll give a little more.

Liz and I enjoyed the live auction. She runs a nonprofit that serves people with developmental disabilities, who she calls "my people." So, every time something got bid up really high, she wanted to go see who had that kind of money.

They might want to give to my agency," she said after someone bid $23,000 for a golf game with Arnold Palmer.

I bid on a package of beer, T-shirts and glasses from Highland Brewing, my all-time favorite -- but it went waaay up and I can't see paying $200 for four cases of beer, even though the owner of the brewery, Oscar Wong is a genuinely kind and generous soul. I can get the beer at the grocery store, but I can't get that Babe Ruth print quite so easily.

Liz egged me on, even though she stopped bidding really early.

When it comes to Eblen, it's easy to egg me on. W#e left before we knew the total amount raised last night, but I'm bet they topped $50,000 -- maybe $75,000. I hope so.

I just love Liz. She has that wonderful irreverent sense of humor my sister Ellen had. It comes from working with and loving people the rest of society doesn't really get and caring about issues that most people don't think about much.