Marijuana Lobbyists? They're Smokin' the Competition!

Food: Mini filet mignon sandwiches, spring rolls, plentiful raw bar, heaps of calamari.

Bar: Open! Insanely generous pours of wine, continuously topped off. (Not entirely a positive thing.)

Crowd: Restaurant regulars, mostly from D.C.'s networking class -- lawyers, lobbyists, publicists, etc.

Overheard: "Let's see if we can recognize any guests from their pictures on the wall."

Boldest-faced names: Larry King, Wolf Blitzer, Food Network superstar Paula Deen -- though they were enjoying normal sit-down dinners, not scarfing freebies with the cocktail crowd.

Surreal moment: Watching the staff fold down tables, take apart booths and pack up boxes of booze, a stack of snow shovels, an entire dishwasher as the party raged on . . . or, uh, was that supposed to be our cue to leave?

Impromptu party favor: One of the sons of the late Edward Bennett Williams carefully peeling the legendary lawyer/Redskins-Orioles owner's caricature from a soon-to-be-demolished wall.

Readers Tell Us

On Wednesday, we remarked on the fresh-faced, no-makeup look of Mandy Moore, who dropped by Mie N Yu on Monday night. Turns out to be the work of Kathy Greene, a local film and television makeup artist who gave Moore the natural glow for an XM Satellite Radio video. Oh, and she says her subject had "no ego, no attitude."

An Arlington reader wonders if soccer parents should pay $230 per kid to escort David Beckham onto the field Thursday:

Only inside the Beltway would children be required to pay large sums to get "access" to their hero. It's like Congress in miniature. Wouldn't it have been more fitting to have some of the area's underprivileged young soccer fans escort Beckham?

And one Virginia reader gave us detention for mentioning Marion Barry's prison stint in Wednesday's column about his Madame Tussauds wax museum sitting:

You could show a little more respect for Barry, calling him a "jailbird" is pretty shallow. That man did more for D.C. than you or your worthless rag [of] a paper ever have or will.

Love him or hate him, he's our Mayor for Life. Send your raves, rants and makeup tips to reliablesource@washpost.com.