Fernando and Liz Murias with Michaele and Tareq Salahi.

What: 21st Annual Leukemia Ball
Where: Washington Convention Center
When: From about 6:00 until late
Ticket price: $1,000 a person
Attire: Black tie

Who: More than 2,000 Washington business leaders and supporters came out for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s 21st annual gala event, which holds bragging rights as the city’s largest non-political fundraiser. Despite a souring economy, the fundraising tally for the night totalled $3.3 million. The event’s sponsor and planning roster reads like a who’s who of the Washington business community: executives from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Beers & Cutler, Eli Lilly, and Laborers’ Charitable Foundation. Ronald M. Bradley was honored as a “Titan of Business” for his dedication to the cause (to the tune of $75,000). Star power came in the person of funny guy Jay Leno, while Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes played for the crowd at the end of the night.

Washington is a two-faced town, swinging between its federal and local identities. Inaugural night for Nationals Stadium showcased local Washington—from the party hosted by the Lerner Family, hometown owners of the baseball team, to the food and the crowd in the stadium.

True, President George Bush threw out the first pitch. And a sprinkling of usual suspects from national Washington made the scene, but the Lerners put a local stamp on the affair, starting with their VIP party.

Many of the “very important people” invited to the spare affair on the unfinished top floor of the Lerners' office building on M Street were lifelong friends of Ted and Annette Lerner. There was much more Chevy Chase and Bethesda than K Street and Capitol Hill.

Neighborhood Eats
117 casual restaurants in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, DC, where the eating is real good.

Great Home Design Package
Want to renovate your home? Put on an addition? Build your dream house from the ground up? Here are architects doing good work in Washington. Plus, look inside the houses of eight area architects—and find out where they shop.

Top Doctors Profiles
As part of our Top Doctors package, we're profiling several area doctors. This week, it's pain-management specialist Lee Ann Rhodes. To see the full Top Doctors database, click here.

He may be gone, but his ghost lingers. American University officials couldn’t have been thrilled to see the name of Ben Ladner, who resigned in 2005 amid revelations of his luxury lifestyle, atop the Chronicle of Higher Education’s latest list of the nation’s best-paid private-college presidents. His $4,270,665 compensation package—mostly a very golden parachute—was lots more than that of the runner-up, Northeastern University’s Richard Freeland, who made $2.8 million.

The cherry blossom trees start to peak this weekend, and you know what that means: gorgeousness around the Tidal Basin, and thousands and thousands of tourists.

Miss out on some of our blog posts from this week? Worry not—we're here to fill you in on what the most popular blog posts were from the past seven days. See below for our top five.