Black Tie & Tales

+ Big birthday, big picture

Claire Love asked, “How about saying ‘special birthday’ instead of 90? I want the boys to still flirt with me.” Ninety is hard to believe when you look at this incredibly stylish lady, a little easier when you look at what she’s done in the community.

Love was a snowbird from 1972 to 1981; her first friend here was Beatrice Friedman, when both lived at 4401 Gulf of Mexico Drive. When Dr. Hyman Love retired in 1981, the couple bought a home on Siesta Key, where they stayed until relocating in 1995 back to Longboat Key.

Love says her friends thought she was “going to die here, with nothing to do in Sarasota as compared to Chicago.” She simply went to meetings of virtually every organization, and ended up running many of them. Love has been president of the League of Women Voters, the Symphony Association and the Women’s Resource Center, for which she introduced the Renaissance Luncheon circa 1990. She has also been a member of the Seniors Advisory Committee of Sarasota Memorial Hospital since its inception 20 years ago.
Tellingly, she has made a big point of introducing the next generation to community service, including Renée Sheade, Hope Leuchter and Barbara Lupoff, who were among the many friends who gathered at Michael’s On East Oct. 1, to celebrate the occasion — and to remind the boys to keep flirting.

(Cutline: Seated from left: Doris Wolfe, Claire Love, Beatrice Friedman and Roddy Samuels. Standing: Rosalie Krone, Charlene Carstens, Jeannette D’Angelo, Janice Zarro, Doris Kaplan, Barbara Lupoff, Gretchen Serrie, Joan Sarney, Barbara Simon, Ilene Friedman and Renée Sheade.)

+ MDA ‘Lock Up’ rockets up

The Muscular Dystrophy Association has an annual lock-up fundraiser. The organization recruits jailbirds from local businesses and professional offices and challenges each one to raise $3,000 bail. The numbers for this year’s end-of-summer event have just been tallied and they are terrific: $159,864 — a little more than double the 2008 total. Champion bail raiser was Michael Beaumier, of Suffolk Construction Co., with $7,880.

An amazing 121 recruits went into action, and 17 (including The Observer Group’s BT) made or exceeded the $3,000 goal.

+  BT tidbits

All things bright and beautiful … St. Armands Key Lutheran Church held its annual blessing of the animals, as always on the Saturday closest to St. Francis of Assisi’s day. The Revs. Mark Bernthal and Eric Wogen officiated, though Christine Ortiz’s Bichon Frisé, Snowy, clearly thought she was in charge. Dogs ruled, including SAKLC Choir Director Jane Lautner’s Bosco and Sue Novak’s Lacy, both regulars at this occasion. … Matchmaking on the menu … Andrea and Cristina Morara, proprietors of Ca’Rina on Bamboo Lane, closed the restaurant for the summer but didn’t get to make a planned trip to Italy. They were too busy with their second business, a high-end- matchmaking, relationship-management- and personal-image consultancy called Stellar Hitch. The handsome couple are the model for their own services, no doubt. Ca’Rina is now open again for dinner only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday…