WHO WENT WHERE?
Shirley and Albert Small summered in Aspen; Lynda and Bill Webster fished in Montana; Lisa Gordon-Hagerty and Michael Houston married in Georgetown; Kevin Chaffee sailed transatlantic on the QM2; and Ruthie and LaSalle Leffall chilled out in Deer Isle, Maine. Kay Kendall caught up with friends and family at Martha’s Vineyard, and Grace and Morton Bender headed to Nantucket. (“Nantucket and the Hamptons become Washington annexes each summer,” says Tandy Dickerson, who visits both.)
Wilma and Stuart Bernstein headed for their house in Aspen, where the Benders also spent part of their summer. Carol Anderson visited a cousin in London before going on to the woodsy Dordogne. A high spot of Giorgio and Anna Maria Via’s summer was a wedding anniversary sojourn in the Big Apple to check out the shows and restaurants, then a return for Dan Hodes’ theater party for a fine performance of Tosca at Catholic U’s Summer Theater, preceded by champagne-and-strawberries. Lolo Sarnoff headed for her Vermont retreat, where for years she skied in winter.
Those designers of palaces, Climis and Carol Lascaris, had just finished one in Saudi Arabia and turned over the keys before taking off for the Greek isles, then to visit Peter and M.A. Brickfield in their Maine summer place, then a stay with Wilhelmina and Wallace Holladay at their waterside home in Rehoboth, and finally to Carol’s native Lake Lure in North Carolina.
As this is written, Ann and Lloyd Hand are planning to set sail for the scenic banks of Dalmatian Istria, and this writer, inspired at the Peruvian Embassy’s Opera Ball setting by the three-foot-high Machu Picchu in chocolate, is about to take off for Peru to see the real 13,000- foot-high thing for herself.

THE “AYES” HAD IT
All agreed that the International Eye Foundation’s 40th Anniversary Gala “Eye Ball” at the Swedish Embassy was a winner. Helping to make it so were sponsors His Highness Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah al Faisal al Saud; Dr. Stephen and Julia Hopping; and Barbara Heineback, who also served as benefit co-chairman with Kathryn Leckey and her husband Robert Best.
Seen were Green Book social arbiters Tom and Evelyn Murray; Jill Gore; Lola Reinsch and her husband Al Pierce; Cyd Everett; Eye Foundation Executive Director Victoria Sheffield and her husband Howard Pyle Jr.; Tom and Esther Price; Deborah Sigmund and Kitty Skallerup. Others included Amy and Robert O’Brien, who are connected to the Bacardi family, and that’s a fine rum-bearing family tree to have.

CARRIAGES AT SEVEN
Selene Obolensky often adds this “Old Russia” instruction at the bottom of her tea dance invitations, though no one has “carriages” today except for the hackers in Central Park, and even “hacker” has another meaning now. She held an especially lovely Russian charities benefit in the gold salon of the Russian Embassy residence, with Svetlana Ushakova in attendance. A week later, still another pretty tea dance, this one supported by the embassies of Bulgaria, Japan and Slovakia for the Beethoven Society of Washington and the Washington International Piano Arts Council. It was hosted by Joan and Warren Polk in the ballroom of “Whispering Woods,” their stunning McLean estate. Concert pianist Eric Himy thrilled the guests at the piano, counterpointing the dance music.
Is there an event Around Town should know about? Email donnashor@aol.com.