My Ellie May Life

I’ve been feeling a lot like Ellie-May Clampett lately.

I should begin by telling you a little about where I grew up. Philadelphia homes are mostly rowhouses. Or, as other folks call them, “townhouses.” Personally, I don’t like that euphemism. It sounds pretentious to me. And we Philadelphians hate pretension. Common childhood expressions were: “You ain’t the boss of me!”, “Who died and left you boss!?!, and “Who do you think you are, Mr. Big Shot!?!”. In any event, we all had the same floor plan. Thus, it is a concept with which I’ve had a hard time coming to terms. It never occurred to me that one could have a choice in such things.

Fast-forward fifteen years and I am a suburban housewife. When I married my husband, my daughter and I moved into “his” house. It’s a semi-tricked out ranch with wood floors, crown molding—fancy stuff I’d never heard of while growing up. (My father actually had his baseboards carpeted and flecks of glitter mixed in with his popcorn ceiling. Sorry for the visual. Please accept my apology).* Because our current house was purchased before we met it has never truly felt like my own, or even “ours”. Even most of the furniture is his. I always feel funny about making any changes, as if I need permission or something.

Now we are planning to have a new house built. I’ve hit the big time. Ain’t swimming with the guppies anymore. No sirree! (Cue Jefferson’s theme song.) Giddy with joy, we put the ranch on the market and chose a custom builder in New Braunfels, TX. It’s extremely exciting, yet bewildering and scary at the same time. I’ve never done this before. I have no frame of reference.

What I’ve come up with so far is a 2 story white brick country French style home—2600 square feet of fun (not too shabby for a formerly homeless mentally ill drunk!). Heh, heh. (Yeah, so, I married well—don’t hate). Is it any wonder I’m crazy about that man o’ mine? These are the major decisions I’ve made so far:

Instead of a formal dining room (we use the one we have now twice a year—max) we’re going to have a media room (AKA hubby’s play room). Although I will miss my formal dining room, as a practical matter we’ll get more use out of a media room. My dining room table holds laundry much more often than food.

Instead of just a breakfast nook, we’ll have a semi-formal eating area just off the kitchen with a fireplace so it will also function as a sort of hearth room.

I’m going to have an island in the kitchen with a secondary sink. Yay me! (Golly Paw, you mean we get to pick our own faucets!).

Particularly exciting is the master bath’s walk through shower and the morning kitchen in the upstairs loft/gameroom.

Since I can, I’m going to have a studio. (I jump up and down and do an Elaine-style happy dance at the thought of this one!)


OK, now that I’m done bragging (Gee Paw, look at them there fancy colored rocks for countertops! Granny: “I wouldn’t trust no flat shaped rocks. Can’t they afford that new-fangled laminate?”) let’s hop into the Way-Back Machine and head to the year 2000.

When I was living in a halfway house, we had daily counseling. One day the counselor brought in a stack of magazines and told us to make a collage of what could be possible in the future, if we stayed clean and sober. Since she said possible, not probable, I let my wild imagination soar. I cut and pasted wood floors, a piano, crown molding, and fresh flowers in a beautiful vase. Sometime later, I asked to see my chart and saw that the counselor’s note for that session read, “Brenda’s expectations seem unrealistic.”

I forgot all about that collage until one day in 2004. I was in my kitchen arranging flowers I grew in my garden. I was standing on hard wood floors. I looked up at the crown molding. And I cried.

My name is Brenda and I am an alcoholic.

P.S.: I’m still working on the piano.





* Sadly, this wasn’t in the ‘70’s, it was in the ‘90’s.