All things being equal. Can I have a do over?

Let the journey to the center of my mind begin.  Wait?  Over before its begun.  There was something wrong with any attempt at finding a solution to this drinking issues of the soul.  Okay, seriously is life fair or do we adjust the rules to accommodate the failures with in us?  Answer that one for yourselves.  Here is my answer, “if you need to back up 15 yards and punt, why not?”  

Do overs are essential.  If we don’t give ourselves a moment of understanding then you have answered the question as to why we drink?  Who judges us most?  God?  Lets leave that one alone.  He and I have an understanding.  If there is one drink left in the bottle and there are two of you, do you split it or do you pour the other person a drink?  Life isn’t fair sometimes, however we have an ability to make things, just a bit more complicated than we should.

 Was thinking the other day, does the Rio Grande River flow into the Ocean or does the Ocean bleed into the river?  Its a simple question but a complex one that can be deciphered by a handful of geniuses with a handful of different opinions.  Is Jack Daniel’s better than Jim Beam?  The beholder of the glass will tell you that the one that comes from the country of Freelandia is probably the better drink.

We trivialize life and yet expect perfection in a bottle.  Hmm that is food for thought.  Where do my flaws accentuate the seconds of the day, or do I just move the hands of time back to accommodate the failures?  Are we all just that evasive that we refuse to put our hands on a simple truth of fact?

Here is a truth, I drink!  Why?  Not sure just yet trying hard to find a reason but then in the quiet moments of my sanity do I really want to know why I drink?  Who wants to know why they drink?  By a show of hands raise them up to the sky in a V and just to tell the man upstairs that you will gladly toast his life.  However if you don’t get a double realize that the man downstairs screams a little bit more than usual.

I always laugh when people drink themselves to oblivion.  What is the point?  Instead why not enjoy yourselves and the company of life?  Its easier said than done.  My jokes about toasting to the rituals of someone’s anguish are far better served in the desolate thoughts of time.  The funniest toast I ever made went something like this, “Here is to the guy down the street who thought it was a great idea to scream at the sky alone.”  No one got it!

If the marquee reads like a novel then why are we dissatisfied with the ticket price?  I would gladly sit in a park in this sweltering heat and listen to the sweet sound of birds singing intimately to each other.  Like a deer caught in headlights these sounds scream to my heart.  They don’t make me wallow in pain, instead they make me realize that in life we have do overs.  What we do with them determines the moments of time that we will cherish.

Okay every time I write a soliloquy most of you sit there reading this asking a simple question, “what are you drinking Rick?”  Tonight, San Pellegrino Limonata.  No alcohol.  A simple lemon flavored San Pellegrino or flavored water.  We don’t always need the sauce. 

So I raise my glass of S. Pellegrino Limonata and toast the simplicity of life that we forget about.  The river does run through our hearts.  Absolutely we buy the novel and expect to only pay half the price.  Its why we always leave the theater saying, “the book was much better.”  

Read this and write your master piece of time and thought.  Be fair and all things being equal you will wake up in the morning a little hungover with life.  Salut!

Who are you and what do you stand for?

Its so easy to confuse what we see in the mirror.  We wake up, take a shower, and stare at the mirror and wonder what happened to yesterday?  Of course these thoughts are from a man in serious denial of his lost youth.  Take for instance this morning, after several cups of coffee and a good cigar it came to me that my morning had still not begun to take shape.  

Some friends joke about trying to get a hold of me, “Tried calling you.  Do you know that your voice mail is full?”  Heck, I called myself and sent myself to voicemail.  My jaded sense of thought tells me quietly that if after a year my voice mail is full, don’t you think you should try texting, or email, or even swinging by to see me.  Yes, we all feel that OUR day is much more important than yours.  Always ME before you.

Who opens a door for a lady?  Do people even wait to eat until everyone is served anymore?  What happened to being polite or having manners?  I call it accessories.  We have all accesorized our lives with all of these neat little things, cell phones have become our own personal secretaries.  With my I-phone I can rule the world.  Hey, if Obama as President of the United States can rule from his personal Blackberry what is there to prevent me from using mine as my PA.

Times have changed, when was the last time you wrote a letter to someone that was not an email?  Here is my letter to life.

Dear Life,

In times like these I begin to wonder where it has all gone to?  Do I exist

purely to satisfy the humor in all of us?  Today the wind blows and the air

outside whispers that tomorrow will be a new day.  The slight chill that reeks 

is of an impending cold front where the temperature will drop from a comfortable

90 degrees to 80 degrees, or as I like to refer to it, ‘here come the lettermen jackets.”

I hide in my cage as my staff loves to call my office and I stare at the volumes of 

alcohol that surround it and ask myself, why?  What is this quest that we are 

after?  What truly makes us happy?  Why do we have to drink to be free to express

what is in our soul?  

A man once said that all he wants is a supermodel looking wife with the brains of Einstein and the nurturing side of his mother.  What he got was two ex-wives, child support payments, and he is still looking for that perfection.  As a man i wonder what women think?  Maybe they really want the tall, dark, and handsome lad.  For the record, I’m out!

I think in a nut shell we all search for the unknown.  We laugh at misery yet we scream when it is ours.  However, let me have a Goose and tonic and lets see where this journey goes.  You know, life, make that a Double Goose and tonic!

In closing, life, if you can wear a matching burgundy lacy bra and lacy panty set, I’m good.  That will do it for me.  If you can scratch my back when it itches.  That’s also a good thing.  And by all means if you can make us a single barrel jack on the rocks with a twist of lemon...its all good.

Always one drink a way from insanity

rick ramos

As always guys and girls, these are thoughts meant to offend everyone.  They serve no purpose other than for us to laugh at everything that is right and wrong with us.  If you feel above this quiet antidote to life, then you my friend are much better off than I am.  

Salut! 

Simple but elegant...

Why we drink?: Letters from the Vineyard...

Why we drink?: Letters from the Vineyard...: So there I was sitting on the outside looking in, staring in disbelief at the great bottle of wine my friends were about to open. Oh the inj...

Letters from the Vineyard...

So there I was sitting on the outside looking in, staring in disbelief at the great bottle of wine my friends were about to open. Oh the injustice.  How can anyone in their right mind do such a tragic thing.  The wine was too young.  It would be impossible to understand her definition.  Did they not understand all of these years sitting with me and enjoying a glass of wine?  Did they not get the deliberate fascination that I have with a wine list?  My tears were rolling down the sleeve straight into the glass that held captive the youth of the vineyards.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if a bottle of wine could sit down behind a Mac and write you a letter.  It would start simple enough with an insulting adjective to describe what she really thought of you.  Disparaging?  Absolutely.  Why not?  For reasons unbeknown to us, we decide to desecrate even the most taboo of all things so why would a bottle of wine be any different?

Dear Genius,

I have decided to write these words that will hopefully find you sober after last nights beating that you had with Grays Peak Vodka.  Exactly who does that?  Why on God’s Earth would you drink yourself to oblivion?  Do you remember the comments you made to my friend Silver Oak?  She was not pleased.

Anyway, let me continue my utter disgust with your lack of civility with this program of mine.  When my parents mother Earth and the Sun decided to breed me they did in a meticulous manner that allowed me months to develop into something unique and special.  Through the winter days and nights I shivered at the thought that one day I would be perfect.

Then Spring came and I woke up from my hibernation and started to stretch my arms.  I felt like a tall drink of water, invincible.  Even weathered a late frost that shook the leaves off of my pants.  It would become a defining moment as I overheard my friend the Wine Maker say something to the effect that we needed that.  Not sure what he was talking about, I was still shivering and he was talking about cruel and unusual punishment.

Then my summer arrived.  I raised my arms to the sky and basked in the glory of her days and wrapped myself in the nights.  Most days were spent day dreaming about night things.  I could feel myself becoming more bountiful.  I could see the expression of my Wine Maker, he thought I was sexy.  I felt like there was no tomorrow.  

When time came and my Autumn arrived I was dressed for the biggest day of my life.  A handsome young lad came to escort me to my new home.  There it was the big dance, all my friends ripe and ready to explode out of their skins.  I had never seen such a collection of perfection.  As you can imagine my excitement was beyond words.  I allowed my self to bask in the glory of the moment.

I flowed gracefully to my new home.  From a distance she was immaculate.  How lucky was I to be a part of greatness, I was besides myself.  Then I heard my friend Mr. Wine Maker, yes he had accomplished much but he had turned me into a princess.  He turned my pumpkin into a carriage.  He was my hero then he said those magical words, “This is perfection, she will age gracefully, in ten years she will only begin to reach her potential.  When she is legal she will be perfect.”

My tears rushed into my new home.  What an unbelievable man to call me perfect and that I would only get better with time.  So what did this mean?  Was there an injustice if they wanted me earlier?  I was suddenly confused.  What was a woman to do?

Genius do you understand the dilemma you have created for me.  You make me want to cry and scream all at once.  I don’t want to offend you.  No!  I don’t want you to be afraid of my friends or for you to never truly understand the affection that I have for perfection.  Why?  Why would you open me before my time?  Why do you drink?  Oh my friend you have much to learn...

Sincerely 

The best bottle of wine you never had.

I stared at the glass my friends handed me and realized that life was too short for me to never speak the truth of what they had just done.  Would that make me one of them?  You know the one, the pompous arse who thinks he knows everything about wine?  The weight of the world was on my shoulders.  What was this man to do?  

Salut!

a little color with some cloudy days ahead

I really like you! Seriously?

Last night while working at home I searched through my collection of wine for a decent bottle of wine to drink.  I would pick one and then just wince at the idea.  It was amazing to me that after all these years my taste buds new what to expect from a particular bottle of wine.  In staring at the wines I was troubled to think that indeed the end is near.  I was slowly crawling to the ends of my mind.  The scary part was not knowing if there was anything left.

1995 was a good year so to speak, the United States lent money to Mexico, go figure.  Some genius bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma.  OJ Simpson is found not guilty.      The DVD is born.  My son Andrew is born.  Selena is killed by her assistant.  Jacques Chirac is elected President of France, awe the sweet irony of life.  1995 was indeed a very busy year.  

After deciding that the 1995 Chateau Mouton Rothschild was the perfect bottle of wine to open, the thoughts became rather simplistic.  Keith Urban on the stereo, the laptops open to get some work done and a glass of wine.  It was time to be productive!

Then a silly little song about kissing a girl came on, the words found themselves in the cavity of the cabeza.  “Shouldn’t be lonely in this big old world.”  At first the words pierced the soul like a blade left over from the tattered fields of a William Wallace macabre.  Even in the soliloquy of these precious moments in my life there came a moment when the smile was genuine.  Then there was another you.

And she was full of life, the smile for everyone to be at ease the tears slowly clung to each other one tear drop at a time.  Earth, leather, fruit, what a incorrigible combustion of words.  Yet the beauty was not lost with the complexity of the moment.  The smile was genuine, confused yet no amount of money could ever replace the seconds of those thoughts.

Easily it would take five or ten more years for me to realize how precious those seconds were.  Yes they led to minutes of inconsequential time but when the fumes evaporated long after the first sip, the tears were still present and the smile was slowly and ironically being replaced with the solitude of the moment.

Why we drink is not a question that requires an answer.  It is a statement of fact, I really like you.  Seriously.  Never take for granted that in 1973 Jacques Chirac then the Minister of Agriculture approved his friend Phillipe Rothschild’s winery, Chateau Mouton Rothschild to become a first growth.  To sit at the alter of time with Latour, Margaux, Cheval Blanc, Haut Brion, and his cousin Lafite.  

With one swipe of a pen Phillipe was never more important.  Did it mean anything?  The irony that my favorite Mouton’s is when Chirac became the French President is like a black comedy which suddenly has become Shakespearean in tragedy.  Yes the tears slowly rolled down and in looking at them my thoughts were simple.  Did I really like you this much?  

Here I was sitting idol for a moment trying to grasp my emotions with the glass, her skin was flawless, a beauty you never explain you just appreciate.  Inhaling her gave me chills that only served to bring a reason.  Allowing her to dance in front of me and watching how at ease she was with herself served a bigger reason.  And then we kissed.

How lively a reason to live.  To experience such a freedom.  To relish the fact of what is and is not.  Yet there she was still in tears.  No napkin to help brush away the strokes of my insanity.  Then the hollow point of my mind, realized that I could change that.  With a sudden burst of energy those tears became a roundhouse kick, and the smile spread as wide as one could imagine.  Her tears became an expression of her legs.  

So what did I learn about 1995?  I really do like you!  The smile you give me when I see you is odd but when you touch my soul as only you can there are no words that can escape these lips.  The tragedy of 1995 will always be undone by the beauty of my son.  It will always be overcome by your elegance and when you finally decide to close your eyes tonight, smile.  Seriously?