PARKER: Women & Wine a very fine time
"This is like a giant slumber party," yelled 9News anchor Kim Christiansen over the din of nearly 200 gabbing gals during the annual Women & Wine Dinner at The Palm on Monday night.
The event, which raises money for the Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers Foundation and Dress For Success Denver, always attracts the loud crowd, who sip wow wines, nosh on steak and lobster, bid on silent auction items and yak till they're hoarse.
Lobbying lady Maria Garcia Berry planted herself next to the gold David Yurman bangle, guarding her bid like it was the last steak in the sold-out restaurant. "I got it!" she squealed when the auction closed.
Meanwhile, Bonnie Mandarich, wife of builder-biz boss David Mandarich, held court in the bar where she re-enacted a few bars from the Gloria Gaynor ditty I Will Survive, the karaoke song she performed during the Concerts for Kids Celebrity Bartender dinner at Elway's Cherry Creek on Friday. "I got 250 bucks for singing it!" she said. "Was I nervous? I didn't care. That was $250 for the charity."
Also seen chatting in the bar: Broncos boss's babe Annabel Bowlen, who admitted she was a tad nervous watching Sunday's Broncos-Saints squeaker. But her perfectly manicured nails were intact. I checked.
After dinner, Mary Smith borrowed a pair of reading glasses, twisted her hair up in back and gave us a spot-on Sarah Palin. (She wouldn't let me take her picture.)
This event is always the best all-girl gathering, with fine wine, fab fare and fierce friendship. But those giving gals all know this is a fun fest with a purpose. Proceeds from this event helped 32 cancer patients last year, and these well-heeled women brought enough clothes for Dress For Success to fill a Dependable Cleaners truck.
SPEAKING OF THE PALM . . . Veteran server Jules Dworak says she wanted a new kitchen but she didn't think it would take a 19-year-old kid driving his dad's SUV through her back patio and landing in her kitchen to get one.
At 11:30 p.m. Sunday, Dworak, who's out of work while recovering from double knee surgery, was in her living room using the doctor- ordered machine that moves your leg post-surgery when she says she heard the crash.
"It's the loudest thing I've ever heard in my life," Dworak told me Tuesday. "It was the most surreal 20 seconds of my life."
The kid apparently lost control of the car and landed in Dworak's home south of Bonnie Brae, then landed in jail. Except for the emotional damage, Dworak says she's fine and will be living in the house during reconstruction if the structural engineer gives her the OK.
"The most important thing is that I could have been killed," she said. "I thought I knew what the word gratitude meant."