OK, before I get started here, did anyone lose a cat? Black with white paws, very friendly, very hungry, very cocky?

The housing industry, both construction and sales, provided the engine for robust economic growth that lasted more than five consecutive years. Clearly, it is the decline of that same housing industry that is leading the economic course towards recession.

Thanks to their corporate sponsors, there is no admission fee to get into COPIA during January and February. If you still haven’t been, now is the time. And if you have been but it’s been over three months since your last visit, it’s time to go again. There have been some interesting changes at COPIA. Open Wed. through Monday, 10 to 5 PM, at 500 First Street. www.copia.org for more info.

With the holiday season now just a warm memory and a Pacific rain and wind storm rattling our windows and sweeping the cul-de-sac with sheets of cold rain, what better time to recapture some precious moments that will never come again?

There are several new regulatory and legislative changes that affect sport fishing license requirements for 2008.

Thanks to a new science called “neuroeconomics,” we learn that the more wine costs, the better it tastes. Or at least some people think so.

Among the many changes World War II brought to the home front was a restructuring of the Napa public school system, effective September 1942.

Since leaving the nest, our young adult children have accumulated many mattresses, bicycles, books, TVs, desks, kitchen supplies and sundry other stuff. Now, truck load by truck load, it’s coming home.

While Napa Valley is lauded as America’s premier winegrowing region, the grapes grown by our Sonoma neighbors are nothing to sneeze at.

So how is your organizing coming along? I hope you are doing well and getting things accomplished.

Ah, the cold and rainy days of January. Might as well curl up with a good book; there’s nothing you can do in the garden. Or perhaps you’re looking longingly through the pages of all those seed catalogs that have been arriving over the past few weeks.

Bill Clinton's visit shows Napa's political clout