Party the first: That would be A Day in the Garden, a luncheon thrown by Taft Museum of Art docents. In the past it was always at the Taft, but this year it was at Peterloon because of construction at the Taft.

        The deal with this one is each of the 18 hostess selects a theme for her table, then hires her own florists and caterers so there's all kinds of variety going on.

        The result is always an incredible — and creative — array of stuff you don't expect.

        Like Cathy Crain's table. The theme was “Under Construction,” in honor of the Taft's makeover, and it came equipped with pink day-glow hard hats, soup in sand pails and crab meat in orange plastic dump trucks.

        Crain had Jeff Thomas Catering do the food and Robin Wood, late of Channel 12 and a bunch of radio stations, do the flowers. Not a roomy table, but fun to look at.

        Or B.J. Foreman's “It's a Dog's Life,” where the food came in doggie dishes and diners stared at a fireplug centerpiece. Or I Dream of Africa, where Janice Hartman, Suzanne Arnold and Suzanne Lakamp had potted palms and mosquito netting draped over the table. Very Kenya.

        The tables were so amazing that Wood, after a tour of the dining tent, wondered “Who needs food? It's enough to just to look.” She nevertheless punished her chow right nicely.

        And so amazing that Phyllis Weston, director of Closson's Gallery, decided most tables were works of art in themselves. Definitely worth a trip to Indian Hill in the middle of the work day.

        Party the second: Elsewhere on the fund-raising circuit where you gotta keep coming up with something different or lose the audience, the Sisters of Saint Francis in Oldenburg, Ind., got creative as all get-out last weekend at their Reconnect with the Land fund-raiser for Michaela Farm.

        Not your dressed-to-the-hilt, black-tie do, this, it was food at picnic tables, an auction and square dance engineered by Sister Ann Marie Quinn, OSF. In a real barn, mind you.

        But it worked. Veteran square dance caller Chris Mitchell of Covington came out of his early retirement — he gave it up in the last decade after calling all over the world in his teens and 20s — to teach the clumsy how to look moderately graceful.

        And yeah, it was hot and the barn was full of hay smells, but people were taken with it because it was so different. (Especially the 20 homemade wines, including dandelion, raspberry and watermelon.)

        As for Mitchell, he's thinking of taking up calling again on a limited basis — for benefits and private parties, continuing his mission to make the clumsy graceful.

       E-mail: jknippenberg@enquirer.com

Race fans camp it up
About the race
Rib America rocks with blues, barbecue
KNIPPENBERG: Knip's Eye View
'Bach & Beyond' superb
Rock survivors haul out the hits at Riverbend
Get to it