Dianne Agaki was 50 years old when she moved to India.

To say that trumpeter Chris Botti trades on musical melancholy might well be an understatement in characterizing his current state of mind.

During this season of creepies and crawlies, no one gets into the spirit more than the thespians at Vintage High School who each year create a haunted house to spook the public and entertain their fellow students.

Being curious to see Jim Leonard’s “The Diviners”  — but glad to see a school undertaking a such an unusual work — I dropped by Napa High Saturday night to watch its production, and found myself  mersmerized not just by the beautifully written work but by the depth and power the students brought to this story, set in the mythical town of Zion, Ind., in the 1930s.

The longest-running comedy in Off-Broadway history, “Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding” is much more than a funny play — It’s a lively and hilarious celebration that invites the audience to eat, drink and dance along with the wedding party.

Justin-Siena seniors Jessica Christianon and Sean Hanna designed the man-eating plant Audrey for their current production of “A Little Shop of Horrors,” which continues this weekend at the high school. Performances are Thursday at 7 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Info, 255-0950. Jorgen Gulliksen/ Register

Education

The Napa City-County Library has received the 2007 PR Excellence Award from the California Library Association. In a statewide competition, judges selected the Napa City-County Library’s monthly newsletter, News & Reviews, as the winner in the category of library news and information.

The first Napa Valley College Criminal Justice Training Center Adult Corrections Core Course graduation was held Oct. 18 at the Pelusi Building in Kennedy Park. The five-week course prepares personnel to work in local facilities, city and county jails.

Fall seems to be the time when many of us gear up for one-pot dishes, but the concept of one-pot meal was non-existent when I was growing up in India.

The memo was so impressive, I was somewhat amazed to see my own name on it, but there it was:

Halloween: What better time could there be to share tales of local haunted houses?

There are two new additions to Copia that will enable it to continue with its goal of educating the public about food going from seed to table: a 24 by 60 foot greenhouse and a deluxe outdoor demonstration kitchen. Both are just steps from Julia’s Kitchen restaurant.

Road racing is an Edginton family legacy -- and Jordan Edginton of Napa and his father, Bryan, make a team that's tough to beat.

The PlayStation 3 feels like it's finally starting to hit its stride. With the release of the third-person shooter "Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction," system owners will have another fantastic game to keep them occupied.

BEAS GONZALEZ-BAEZA FRIAS — Mario Beas Gonzalez, 36, Laurel Street, Napa, to Maricela Baeza Frias, 32, Durfee Avenue, Pico Rivera.

Mary Wolsky was born on Sept. 15, 1917 in Ravinia, S.D., to Dorothea Caroline Dahl and Marius Juul, their sixth, and their only child born in the United States.

PERRINE-RICHMOND — Cynthia Perrine-Richmond vs. Thomas Richmond, Oct. 18, 2007.

An ant carved in a tree trunk, a hitching post for a Napa business pioneer’s horse and buggy and one big eucalyptus tree that is in the “Registry of Big Trees” is featured in this month’s “Where in Napa Valley Is ...?”

It was billed as “The Great Cork Debate.” It pitted representatives of the cork and screw cap industries against each other, plus a confirmed screw cap user and an authority on cork taint.

Mendocino Hotel is holding “Malbec, Merlot and Mushrooms” on Nov. 10-11 and will include a forage for mushrooms through nearby Mendocino forests where guests will learn how to identify mushrooms and which ones are safe to eat.

“Napa Valley represents only 4 percent of the wine produced in California, but we get 30 percent of the revenue from that wine.”

Napa Valley, CA—Chateau Haut Verwelm, a new super-luxury winery in an exclusive part of the Napa Valley, is proud to release its first bottling, a remarkable Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon, which will soon be the most talked-about wine in the world.

As harvest 2007 wraps up in the valley, we thought we’d share photos from a different view point: These were taken by Jeff Hansen, the talented winemaker at Amici Cellars, a Napa boutique winery.

When George Taber was working on “Judgment of Paris,” his book on the 1976 Paris tasting, he traveled to many wine producing areas around the world to determine the global impact of the event. But winemakers weren’t talking about that as much as they were about the problems they were having with cork taint. “They were talking about the subject of closures,” he said.