**Meri Chrissi?**

Might that be Australian for Merry Christmas, mate? This goes out to my beautiful and amazing daughter and niece and their delightful friend Karen. Have a wonderful day when you wake! We will celebrate a second time for you on this side of the dateline. Can't wait to see the 'oliday pix of where you spend Christmas down under.

Love to you all from the land of rain and moss.

**The Best Birthday Presents...**

Are the wonderful reminders that I have the best children, EVER>

First is the text message from down under from my daughter (courtesy of my niece's cell phone thank you very much)

Next is the PHONE CALL from Uluru in the center of Australia (aka the middle of NOWHERE). Yep, my daughter wishing me a happy birthday. That young lady is simply awesome. The pictures of her exploring Australia just make my heart sing.

Third is waking up the day after and picking up my son at the airport and bringing him home for the holidays. Wow, I missed him. He is all grown up and, ya know, I really like him. One of those kids that if he was someone else's child, I would be wishing secretly that I had a son like him. BUT I DO!

Three pretty flower bouquets in the house. Smile.

A good birthday all around.

In other news... the new house closes Thursday morning.

The day after Christmas.... packarama.

**Lobbying at its Finest**

S. asked me today if medical services were taxed in NY. I looked on line. They aren't. But that is not what prompted me to write. It is what ELSE is tax exempt Here is a list, in no special order (imagine the lobbying efforts that resulted in these):

1. Receipts paid to a homeowners association by its membership for parking services.

2. Laundering, dry-cleaning, tailoring, weaving, pressing, shoe repairing and shoe shining.

3. Admission to live circus performances.

4. Services by funeral homes.

5. U.S. and N.Y. flags.

6. Certain military decorations

7. Certain items sold through coin operated vending machines.

8. Coin operated luggage carts.

9. Garage sales.

10. Milk crates purchased by a dairy farmer.

11. Certain race horses.

12. Copies sold through coin operated photocopying machines at fifty cents or less.

13. Wine furnished at a wine tasting.

14. Services performed to a qualifying barge

15. Certain coin-operated car wash services

16. Certain food and drink sold by a senior citizen housing community to its residents and their guests.

17. Gift shop sales at a veteran's home.

18. 75% of the admission charge to a qualifying place of amusement.

19 Certain portion of the admission charge to attend a roof garden or cabaret.

Source: NYS publication 850

**PNW Version of the Winter Storm**

I am sitting at home waiting for my fence to blow over. Normally I wouldn't be fixated on such a thing, but I figure, hey the house is on the market, a big storm is here, there obviously is going to be damage to the house - roof shingles gone, skylights blown away, the fence.... S. is at the coast working and I can't reach him. Verizon service died last night. Can't reach him on Cingular. Land lines are out. Power is out. All the roads to the coast are blocked by trees. Highway 101 is flooded at the north end of town. I may not hear from him for a couple days at this rate. I am sure he is running from farm to farm with generators so farmers can milk.


Maybe the saddest loss of this storm is the Sitka Spruce in Seaside. It was the oldest tree in Oregon and the largest Sitka Spruce in the United States. 206 ft. tall. 52 ft. circumference. 750 years old.


Before: (taken last summer - the top had already broken off from damage during the storm in Dec. 2006). There were plans to cut it down because it was unsafe, but ultimately it was blocked off and allowed to finish out its life naturally.


After: Taken by a brave KATU photog, it didn't survive the Dec. 2007 storm. It looks like it broke about a third of the way up the trunk.