Living large

So it’s clear these are tough times, financially speaking. What with a recession looming, the Fed staying a grim course with interest rates, gas prices hovering in the $3 a gallon range, and housing values all over the country tanking like so many penny stocks — the future for middle-American homeowners is looking mighty cloudy.

Each of us deals with this in his own unique way.

Me? I’m reverting to my college days, lying on an air mattress on the bare wood floor of a 300-square-foot efficiency, enjoying the damp breeze from a wheezy, old window air conditioner, and drinking a glass of Château Bellevue Peycharneau 2004. OK, I guess I’m not reverting all the way. . . .

Last time I had a lease on an apartment like this one, I was 19 years old and prone to drinking wine coolers. But the rest — the solitude, the feeling of freedom, the inexpensive lifestyle — is the same.

You see, when my husband and I were married about a year ago, the plan was that we would sell his suburban townhome and then my tiny two-bedroom cottage near the city, so we could buy a house that would fit all our collective stuff plus my three adult-size teenage kids. Within weeks, news reports about the declining real estate market started to eke out. We lowered our expectations and put my husband’s house up for sale. Eight months and four price drops later, it sold. But by this time, we’d paid out more than $10,000 in mortgage and maintenance for a home no one was occupying and taken a loss against the principle he owed. There was no way we could start all over with my house.

Instead, we got creative. And that’s where the efficiency comes in. Living in less than 1,500 square feet and sharing a bathroom with three teenagers takes its toll. There was no place to work, to think, to kiss without someone popping around a corner and saying, “Eeeewwww, people live here.” So we took 1/4 of the money we were no longer spending to maintain two houses and rented ourselves a tiny little room with no view. An office for me, a place to have an occasional dinner for two, a getaway.

Anyway, back to that first night: the air mattress, the a/c, and the wine. It’s a funny one, this Bordeaux, with so much structure, it may be possible to pour it out and make shapes with it — like plaster of Paris. The nose is full of cherry but the flavor is far more austere: oak and tannins, just a hint of something sharp that isn’t quite anise (no matter what the bottle says) and the oddest taste of graphite. It’s like licking the tip of a #2 pencil, the taste of which sends me right back to fourth grade. . . .or rather, fourth grade if the Hiawatha School lunchroom had had one hell of a sommelier.

There’s an extra long finish on the Château Bellevue Peycharneau, as well. A finish so long it gives you time to think about the last time you lay on an air mattress in the middle of a tiny, darkening room. And I’m a woman who likes that suspension, senses swinging on a trapeze swing, ideas intruding that are not entirely my own.

This was a special-occasion wine for us, meaning it cost more than $15 — though every retailer I’ve checked sells it for less than $20. To the best of our recollection, we picked it up at Surdyk’s. And it’s worth noting that my husband was far less entranced than I. He loves thick, jammy, fruity Malbecs whereas I’m a sucker for willful wines that taste like things I never would have imagined, like wet cement or Cuban cigars or pencil lead.

So on our second trip to the tiny apartment, I was able to finish off the bottle myself, feeling as if I’d come full circle — shucking off the opulent dreams I’d had when I was 19, becoming downright grateful for 300 square feet of quiet and a really interesting wine.