AROUND TOWN

With Donna Shor

Donna Shor

BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
Mary Ourisman, caught off guard at the Opera Ball by all the congratulations at rumors of her pending ambassadorial appointment, was still explaining the next day at the NRH Polo Classic at The Plains that, "It hasn't happened until it happens." Now the Ourismans are off to the State Department's protocol school; think training wheels for future ambassadors and their mates. The appointment, doubtless official by the time you read this, will be to Barbados, the acting administrative center of a whole archipelago, including St. Kitts and Nevis, with 150 diplomats and staff it will be her job to oversee. Mary can do it. Blonde, beautiful and looking as if she doesn't need to manage anything more challenging than a cream puff, Mary has repeatedly shown her administrative ability on all the projects she has headed since coming to Washington.

The Land Rover-sponsored polo match, the National Rehabilitation Hospital's benefit under the patronage of Argentine Ambassador Jose Borden and his wife Monique, was attended by several ambassadors, including Portugal's Pedro Catarino and wife Cheryl, who support so many Washington charities.

Committee onlookers included former Rep. James and Sylvia Symington; Tandy Dickerson, there with husband Wyatt; Barbara McConaghy; Jamie Bowersox; Finlay and Willee Lewis; Gen. Lawrence and Patricia Skantze; Annie Totah; and from the NRH board of directors, Candy Somerville, with husband Jack, and the board's treasurer, Robert Ourisman. Team Argentine won against the U.S.A, with a female rider on both teams: Maria Fenoglio for Argentina, Fiona Seager for the Americans. Fiona and her brother Adair, who also rode, are both award-winning players. Their parents, the Stephen Seagers, own the handsome estate Chetwood Park, the scene of the match, where they raise Black Angus cattle and polo ponies. Dr. Seager, who emceed the event, directs the NRH Fertility Research Program, and is an internationally-known pioneer in the field of fertility for men with spinal cord injuries and other neurological disorders.

Nini Ferguson and Carole Randolph chaired the polo match-auction-and-tango party combo, which drew as its honorary chairman an Oscar-winning neighbor, polo and tango enthusiast Robert Duvall, with his Argentineborn wife Luciana Pedraza. One couple who did not pass unnoticed were magazine-coverchic Timothy and PJ Trudeau, he in a polo-perfect white suit, and PJ clad head-to-toe in black and white Chanel, (even to her sunglasses), and a swooping, sculptured black straw topper. With them were Larry and Pat Skantze - she of the hundred hats - whose cartwheel white straw swooped even wider than PJ's.

Global Rights Executive Director GAY MCDOUGALL, pictured with Global Rights Board Chair JAMES FITZPATRICK, was honored on April 25 by the organization for her 12 years of leadership at the Textile Museum.	CHERIE ROBERTS and LEONADE JONES at the Washington Area Women's Foundation's fourth Philanthropy Forum, held May 17 at The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel, where Fannie Mae President and CEO STACY D STEWART was honored with the foundation's entrepreneurial philanthropy award.	ANN KENKEL helped CAROLYN BOUTTE celebrate her birthday during a surprise party held May 15 at Boutte's Watergate apartment.

PRELUDES TO THE BALL
The embassy dinners preceding the grand Washington balls are a large part of the evening's fun, with everyone comparing notes on menus and table companions once the 10 p.m. ball site is reached. Here's a sampling from the Opera Ball: at the Liechtenstein embassy, Brad Stoddard was pleased to find that his table partner was Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; at the Portuguese embassy, the Giorgio Vias were charmed by beautifully served fish in a pastry basket, followed by quail in red wine; newlyweds Gerhard and Monique Mally, both Vienneseborn, were delighted that their invitation, a kind of homecoming, was to the Embassy of Austria. Admired at Villa Firenze, scene of the ball: the star-studded, gauzy tent; the clever maroon-feathered shoulder epaulettes - detachable when she danced - on the gown of Lila Castellaneta, host of the evening with her husband, Italian Ambassador Giovanni Castellaneta; 2,000 magnificent roses massed in huge silver bowls; all presided over by smashingly successful chairman-$16 million in her 7-year span - Betty Knight Scripps, in bright red Scaasi with lotsa, lotsa diamonds.

LIZETTE CORRO and MIGUEL CORRO were also in attendance	KAY UNGER, who was honored at Marymount University's Portfolio in Motion fashion show as designer of the year, with LOLA REINSCH PIERCE, CEO of E.G. Reinsch Companies and Marymount University Board of Trustees member.

ALLEN WOLFE models a design by Marymount student LEEANN JOHNSON.	Colombian Ambassador ANDRÈS PASTRANA and his wife NOHRA PASTRANA, with daughter VALENTINA, at the surprise dinner they threw for two dozen friends at their Dupont Circle residence in honor of Nohra's birthday.

CAREFREE AT THE CARE BALL
Singapore Ambassador Heng-Chee Chan, whose embassy was one of the 40 that gave pre-ball dinners for CARE, got her guests off to a break-the-ice start by asking a fun question and going around the table to get everyone's answer. CARE's 60th Anniversary was celebrated at the OAS, where the Radio King Orchestra kept the crowd flocking to the dance floor.

Seen: Sheila Johnson, owner of the Washington Mystics, serving as a CARE "Ambassador" spokesperson; Sen. Pat Roberts; Debby and Rep. John Dingell; Mickey Nedelkovich; Nicole d'Amecourt; Andre Willieme; and among the ambassadors present, Sorin Ducaru of Romania and his wife Carmen, two of the liveliest dancers. Nicole's mother, the very active Gertie d'Amecourt, grande dame and patron of the arts, was recently given a 96th birthday party by another grande dame, Lolo Sarnoff, also an arts patron, who has done much to enrich life for D.C.'s elderly through her Arts for the Aging program. More than two hundred of their very best friends showed up for the birthday girl's evening.

HILARY DUFF performs at the National Children's Museums' third annual Kids' Extravalooza, held June 10 at the museum's future site at L'Enfant Plaza.	TOM WOLFE and National Endowment for the Humanities Chairman BRUCE COLE at the Warner Theatre, where Wolfe gave the 2006 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities on May 10.

THE GILDED GATHERINGS
Along with the Opera Ball, two other events, though very different, are also super-charged A-List happenings, and also have guests flying in from near and far. These are the State Department Diplomatic Reception Rooms, and the glamorous Mosaic Foundation dinner, headed this year by Queen Rania of Jordan, which you have seen covered in these pages.

Friends of CAROL LASCARIS gathered in the Senate Dining Room to celebrate her birthday on May 10. Seated from left: Co-host FRANCES LUESSENHOP, JULIE CONNORS, CAROL LASCARIS and co-host GRACE NELSON; Standing from left: NANCY STEVENSON, JAMIE MCCAMPBELL, PENNY DURENBERGER, co-h0st JUDY ESFANDIARY, LYNDA WEBSTER, KARNA BODMAN and MARCIA CARLUCCI.

At the State Department, the annual reception honoring donors to the art-and-antique-filled rooms is always notable, as are the guests who come each year to check out the latest beautiful American furnishings or decorative art of the 17th and 18th century given to beautify the topfloor suite. Many of the large givers attending have donated items or funds for years, such as Brad and Denise Alexander, and his mother Sandra Alexander, of Toledo, Ohio, and Palm Beach; Esther Coopersmith; Monica and Herman Greenberg; Leonard and Elaine Silverstein; and the William Tolds, who arrived from Palm Beach for the event. Colin Powell remains another generous giver. He especially enjoyed these rooms when he was in charge; it is now Condoleeza Rice who welcomes and addresses the crowd. Other long-timers there were Bill and Buffy Cafritz, Jane Lingo and John Irelan, and Roberta McCain. The Daniel Sheppards, who were there from Lutherville Md., gave a magnificent silk damask sofa from the turn of the 18th century - one more handsome adornment for rooms that in 1961 were brown-walled and concrete-floored, with office-type carpeting, and which now proudly receive foreign heads of state.

If you have an upcoming event Around Town should know about, send advance word to Donnashor@aol.com.