Here's wishing a speedy recovery to former Republican Rep. Henry J. Hyde, who had successful triple-bypass heart surgery over the weekend in Illinois.

Meanwhile, the House Foreign Affairs Committee room in the U.S. Capitol was to have been named this week for the former International Relations Committee chairman, but the ceremony is postponed until the 83-year-old Mr. Hyde recovers.

A longtime House Judiciary Committee chairman who oversaw the impeachment proceedings against President Clinton, Mr. Hyde chose not to run for re-election in 2006.

Surprising Vivian

Members of the Fourth Estate converged on the Ritz-Carlton Pentagon City on Wednesday evening to wish a very surprised Vivian A. Deuschl congratulations on her 20 years with Ritz-Carlton Hotel Co., where she is the longtime corporate vice president of public relations.

What many admiring reporters who work with her don't realize, is that Mrs. Deuschl was once an editor for the China Post in Taipei, Taiwan. She was also special assistant to the undersecretary of Commerce for Travel and Tourism, and served as a White House press aide under former President Gerald R. Ford.

She once allowed this columnist to accompany her into former President Bill Clinton's plush bedroom suite high atop the Portman Ritz-Carlton in Shanghai shortly before the president arrived from Beijing. There, she personally decorated the surroundings with a few of Mr. Clinton's favorite furnishings, including a framed portrait of "Buddy," the president's Labrador retriever, who was left back at the White House. (There is no truth to the rumor that this columnist short-sheeted Mr. Clinton's bedsheets.)

Among those toasting Mrs. Deuschl was The Washington Post's Gary Lee, who ironically had just reported that the Ritz-Carlton "nudged" ahead of both JW Marriott and Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts as the "favorite luxury hotel of guests," according to a survey by J.D. Power and Associates.

Other well-wishers included NBC producer Susan LaSalla; former Washingtonian food and wine executive editor Thomas Head; USA Today's Ron Schoolmeester; Ritz-Carlton president and COO Simon Cooper; and former news anchor-turned-Marriott International executive vice president of global communications, Kathleen Matthews.