Italian American Love Fest Tonight In DC

This ballroom at the Washington Hilton soon filled up with an interesting mix of Italian Americans, and Americans and Italians at the annual National Italian American Foundation gala. Happily, not the usual suspects. Oh, yeah, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, but the Supremes are socially unbiquitous. These days it's pretty much not a party without at least one of them on the guest list, often there are two or three. I think it was Anthony Kennedy who I almost tripped over at the ball last night.

But tonight lots of real people, many of them in town from New York, New Jersey and Italia. At my table, photographer Kevin Allen and I were the only two from DC. We liked that. To my right was a man from Arlington, New Jersey, and to Kevin's left to men from Florence, Italy, though one of them lives and works in New York City. Here they are:

It's late now. Their party will go all night. I'll have more about all of it in my story on washingtonian.com on Monday. Tomorrow, alas, no galas. Only the Redskins game...it's own kind of gala.