Good Morning Ruby

Christmas passed quietly and the last few days of the year are slowly devouring the crumbs of time left on the calendar table. I still have more than 120 days left with a reference of what happened exactly one year ago, when I shared time and love with Ruby. At one point I will run out of that and will be able only to refer to the pain of being alone, the guilt of the loss.

What I remember now, are the mornings when we will wake up together in my bed, I will turn to my left, move closer and put few long and warm kisses on her naked back and murmur “good morning Ruby”. She would stir and stretch, give a little moan and in a little while say “good morning Venci” with almost silent joy, half asleep, but happy of the way the day is brought to live. Then I will envelope her in my arms and legs and kiss her neck and we will be so hot that we have to break it or just engage.

I met her in my yoga class, she was one of the best there and after 4 years of practice she had mastered some of the posses so well that I often looked at her to enjoy the slender body balancing on one leg in Standing Bow position, which was her best. We are supposed to concentrate on ourselves and look into our own eyes in the wall to wall mirrors, but I glanced at her never the less, when she was in class. I started calling her Ruby, because I thought of her as a gem and the intensity of rubies was more matching to her then any other precious stone.

This is the beginning of the story (book) I am starting to write and I will not put more of it in this blog but try to finish it first and see what comes out of it. It should have a lot of jazz in it, little travel, photo sessions and some tense memories...I will put everything down as it happened so I can have closure, since I still don’t get it, but it has been over for 8 months now, exactly matching the time we were together.

All I Ever Get For Christmas Is Blue

All I want for Christmas Is You....

Grandmothers for Peace

End of an awful year, I am so very happy it is about over. And do you know the news... W. cannot book any speaking gigs after leaving the White House, I wonder why...?

I was selling VINI and grappa in Berkeley today, and took photos of a demonstration organized by the Grandmothers for Peace. I avoid Berkeley these days, but today I liked it. I liked the day as well, cold but clear and sunny. I am loosening up in blogging, alive again after the Google wars.



Then I took Troy and Chris to Mary's Pizza on the plaza of Sonoma for dinner. They didn't know it, but it was basically a bribe after all the work they did in December for our sales on the Internet. And for desert we saw Slumdog Millionaire - very impressive beginning of the movie, go see it.

Your blog is locked???

Blogger locked my blog! My blog is blocked, locked and shackled by Google (Do Not Evil Empire?) What the f*^k, as our Chicago mini-emperor says, I ask only $500,000 for this blog. The robot in/of Google believes that I am not just bitching after dark, but a program that I created, is spamming the Google Universe with my love proclamations for Ruby. No, it is me, Google.



In any rate, I went shopping for Anika's Christmas present and for this sole purpose I went to an art opening at Lisa Kristine gallery in Sonoma and at the Art Guild. The good looking gal (?) is Lisa Kristine and she was so kind to sign her book I bought for Anika. After that I met her adopted child from Tibet and her life partner, a good looking brunette...I was surprised again even living in San Francisco Bay Area for more than 22 years.

Then I met Zaza after her opening at the Sonoma Art Guild. With Zaza we share a friend of many years - Ogo, another painter, but I will not write about him now. Zaza was his girlfriend 20 years ago, when I came to the City by the Bay and Ogo was living and entertaining at the Stables on Clement. Zaza is French, who lives in Napa and pardon my Bulgarian, she could be so f*^king entertaining and sexy, and commanding and managerial as well. She also put out unknown for me and beautiful art work - here is her website. If you have $$$ buy it, it is worth every splash.



Your blog is locked - Why I am speaking in Chicagoish f*^king language

Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog. (What's a spam blog?) Since you're an actual person reading this, your blog is probably not a spam blog. Automated spam detection is inherently fuzzy, and we sincerely apologize for this false positive.

We received your unlock request on December 16, 2008. On behalf of the robots, we apologize for locking your non-spam blog. Please be patient while we take a look at your blog and verify that it is not spam

Yves Saint Laurent fashion exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco

My daughter Anika and I went to the Yves Saint Laurent fashion exhibit at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. We were joined by D'Arcy, Anika's childhood friend and the three of us had busy afternoon and a good time. The only problem was, wherever I looked I saw Ruby, we were together at the museum in February and everything remained me of her. It all started in the morning....I went to Bikram yoga and there was Jane, Jack's girlfriend (Jack plays with Ruby in the same jazz trio). I haven't seen her in 6 months, and she brought the past back to life. Why is it, that a 52 years old man in rather good shape, 200 lb of Bikram cooked flesh and life memories that span on 4 continents cannot get over this woman? I just cannot, and it makes all my work worthless, and life rather miserable even in the light of latest successes. Why there is no forgiveness? This was supposed to be the best year in my life, and I blew it from being in a hurry, not paying attention? She is really a gem, the love of my life, but you cannot cut her will even with diamonds.

If you go see the exhibit, get yourself a bottle of bubbly in the Cafe and send me the bill. No kidding. Merry Christmas!

Sales chart - Sept./Nov '08

The purpose of this blog is to showcase the progress in creating market share for the wines I import, and provide the latest information to consumers and to the trade. I have been careful lately and trying not to say too much, but the reality is, we are selling well in these tough times. Forget the opera and my personal feelings, after the award for Best Eastern European wine for VINI things are moving rapidly forward.



Sales of the 3 leading Bulgarian brands are increasing rapidly in the current economic conditions. The sales chart you see reflects sales to out of state distributors, sales to CA retailers and Internet sales.

The leader in sales is the VINI brand, awarded the Best Eastern European red wine at the World Value Wine Challenge ‘08. The 2007 vintage of white wines from Targovishte winery recently arrived and our best selling Muscat Grappa Peshtera also contributed to the increase of sales in this period.

La Bohème

I treated myself for the Holidays with an excellent San Francisco night at the Opera. My friends who took the opera class at the SRJC and I went to Max's Diner, next to the opera house and amongst a crop of opera fans had cocktails and dinner. Then we went to the opera and bumped into Bill Traverso from Santa Rosa and Kate Kennedy from Sonoma. Small world .... as we all know it, Sonoma county had a solid representation at the opera. I wish Ruby was there with me, but no such luck, she is long gone and that makes my life more painful then the story of La Bohème. Damn it, I miss her so much.

Squeeze Box

I think in order to feel better in these troubled times one has to go more often to see shows, opera, etc. I did go to the Marsh and what a wonderful performance I saw - The Squeeze Box. Ann Randolph was so funny and warm, really great.

With pathos and humor, Randolph skillfully weaves together stories about working in a women's homeless shelter and the pursuit of true love। Her painfully funny portraits of the shelter's residents, and hilarious account of her hiking trip with Harold, the accordionist of her dreams, are beautifully drawn in this poignant tale about finding dignity and grace in unusual places.

Randolph, who has been compared to the late Gilda Radner, uses her elastic face, acrobatic voice, and attuned body language to play male and female, young and old characters. With just a chair, banjo, guitar and lights, she brings to immediate, pulsing life her tragicomic journey of discovery and self-acceptance with remarkable freshness and vibrancy.

Randolph wrote Squeeze Box while working the graveyard shift at a homeless shelter for mentally ill women where she's worked for the past ten years. She recently performed excerpts from "Squeeze Box" on National Public Radio's new program Public Radio Weekend and on PBS. Randolph began working with the chronic mentally ill while attending college, where she received room and board from a state mental hospital in exchange for writing original comedies with schizophrenics.