What's in a Name?

“Mary Poppins, is that your name? It’s lovely.”


I have heard that so many times.

Ok, it’s actually, “Ivy Bliss, is that your name? It’s lovely.”

Yes. Ivy Bliss is my name. My first and middle name. I tend to just go by that, my last name is difficult to spell – not because it is hard, but because it could be spelled in so many different ways, due to phonetics. Also because when people see it on paper, it is always said wrong.

And, of course, there’s a story behind it. My parents are not hippies. That’s me, remember?

My mom doesn't.

My parents worked at a ski resort in Colorado long before I was born. My mom was a maid, and my dad ran the ski lift. They met several famous people in that time. My mom met Lucille Ball. My mom is not a fan. Apparently, Lucy lined up the maids and hand-picked who was allowed in her room. She told them who looked like a thief and who was pretty enough to clean her room. I have heard that story my whole life. Therefore, I have never seen a single episode of I Love Lucy.

However, my dad met Buddy Hackett, and his daughter, who was very young, maybe four or five at the time. This little girl fell in love with my dad. Her name was Ivy. And for some reason, it stuck.

On their way to the agency to pick me up, they stopped to get something to eat. Their waitress’s name was Bliss. And it worked with Ivy.

So there you go, I am Ivy Bliss.

Make Love Not War...with the letter H

I’m a hippie. I always have been.


I believe in peace, love and happiness. I flash peace signs. I listen to rock n roll from long ago. I am obsessed with The Beatles. I relate and feel something in their music. Paul Simon can send me into a trance.

I love everything about the 60s and 70s. The bell bottom jeans, the revolution, the freedom. I would have given anything to be at Woodstock.

I wasn’t even born then.

I have always had this idealistic point of view, like it was this carefree time. I know I would have been a hippie, riding around the country on a bus, protesting the war.

That’s the problem. War. It wasn’t an ideal time. It was scary. Every day, someone was dying. Every day, someone was killed for a cause of some kind. Every day, there was turmoil. It was a time filled with fear-based action driven by reality. It was a new reality, television brought the war and the riots into homes for the first time.

Now, I’m not saying that what is going on today is any less fearful. I think we are a little immune based on having television, radio and internet. We are information driven, and need it now. We have the ability to know what happens all the time, everywhere in the world.

I think maybe, in addition to the music and the hippie lifestyle, I am drawn to the simplicity of the time. As much as I thrive on technology and am a computer-geek, there are times when I wish I had the ability to turn off the phone, the computer, the television. It is a crutch I can’t quite live without, like so many of us.

I started this post thinking about how much I love being a hippie.  It took a weird little turn.  But that's what happens sometimes when we write, I suppose.

Green.

I haven't posted the last two days for the A-Z Blogfest.  The days just got away from me.  So, without further ado, G (Friday).

Green is my favorite color. It always has been. In all shades, except bright lime green.


Some think it is because of my name. Some think it is because it’s where I come from. Some think it is because of nature, because of the trees I used to climb or lay under and the grass I would lay in.

I guess they are all right. Kind of.

My name is Ivy, so by default, green was bound to me from the beginning. So maybe I was born this way.



Shickley Longhorn Helmet



I am from a small town. In a town that size, high school sports are pretty much everything. Shickley Longhorns. Go green! The school colors are green and white. I grew up wearing green. So maybe I was brainwashed.

A tree outside the town I'm from in Nebraska.
One of my favorites.

Then there is nature. I spent my childhood outside. I would climb a tree and sit as far up as I could go. I remember picking the best branch, the one with the biggest and greenest leaves, and that is the one I would sit on. Or I would find the biggest shade I could find and sit under it. I love to sit under trees and read or write or stare off into spare. I would run through the fields and the grass until I fell down. Grass makes a better bed sometimes than an actual bed. So maybe it’s just in me.

I don’t know why I like green. I just do. It’s part of my life, and always has been. It can calm me like very little, just by looking at it or thinking, concentrating on the color.

FOOD! Oh, glorious FOOD!

“I can't cook.”

“Oh, no, I'll buy something for the party. You don't want me to poison anyone, do you?”

“I don't know how to cook.”

“Where do you want to go eat?”

These are the things I said over and over for the first 33 years of my life. Truth be told, I was afraid to cook. I was afraid it wouldn't be good. I was afraid that what I made wouldn't look, smell, or taste like it was supposed to.

My paternal grandma is an amazing cook. She has a very old propane stove she has to light with a match – the same one she has had my whole life and longer. She doesn't have any fancy gadgets or machines to make it easy. She does it the same way she has done since the 1930s – by hand and from scratch. She makes everything by hand. Donuts, jelly, bread, (the world's best) macaroni and cheese, everything. Watching her when I was little, she made it look so easy, but also, there were a lot of steps involved. And a lot of work.

It is kind of intimidating to watch. To hear her tell it, it's as easy as breathing. But this is also the same woman who sits down with a pen and crossword puzzle for twenty minutes, maybe a half hour, and when she stands up, every space on it is filled with the proper letter. (I sent her the first crossword I ever completed on my own, at the age of 24.)

So easy? As easy as breathing? I think I need a second opinion...

My mom is a good cook. Mostly, my grandma taught her. When my dad was in the military, she lived with them. She makes a lot of the same stuff. Just not so much from scratch, and with the gadgets and machines. She does do a bang up job on the macaroni and cheese.

So, what of me? I have never had much interest. I am more of an outside child. I wanted out. I didn't want to be inside in the kitchen on a nice day, I wanted to be outside running, playing, climbing trees. If it was cold, I wanted to be inside, reading a book or imagining up my next story. I didn't want anything to do with anything domestic.

My first meal.

In August, at 33, I moved (again). I decided it was time to learn to cook.

In the months leading up to this move, I researched everything about cooking. I bought all kinds of gadgets and machines. I bought basic necessities. In the midst of all this, I kept wondering if I was just wasting my money.

Here's the thing. I was scared. SCARED. I had no clue what I was doing. I had no clue if I could do this. My go-to emotions are fear and self-doubt. And, I’m bad at math. All the measuring and dividing (when you cut recipes) terrified me. Oh, and I am not patient. Not at all.

But I forged on.

Going to the grocery store was a whole other adventure. I didn't know where anything was, beyond the cereal isle. I felt lost and confused every time I had to buy something new. I felt silly looking at the varieties of items with a blank stare on my face. I would spend at least an hour in the store every single time. This was not easy.

I wanted to cook smart, healthy, and cost-effective. It is hard to stay cost-effective when you don't have any basic ingredients. It seemed every recipe cost over $50 at the beginning. I didn't have flour. I didn't have sugar. I didn't have the proper kind of milk. I didn't have...

I didn't have anything to store this in. I didn't have Tupperware. I didn't know where to get Tupperware. I knew about Tupperware because my mom has it. I wanted the Tupperware she has. That is what I am familiar with. That is what I am comfortable with. Problem: her Tupperware is as old as I am.

Retro tupperware!

Ebay. I got on ebay and found retro Tupperware. I bought it.

As far as the food goes, it is coming along. I am learning. Everything I have made up to this point has been good, with the one exception – asparagus soup. I just think I don't know enough about spices yet.

I try very hard to stay away from boxes. I want my food to be as whole as possible. Healthy was one of my goals. And, besides, my grandma doesn't use boxes. Even the sweet stuff, like brownies, don't come from boxes. All homemade so far.

Peppermint-chocolate brownies.
NO BOX.

There is a difference in the way my grandma and I cook. I have the gadgets. I have the machines. She, on the other hand, has her history and her knowledge. I call her from time to time and update her about what I am cooking. She shares stories and recipes with me. We have a bond now that we didn't have before. My one regret: not having her teach me when we lived near each other.

The fear is gone. I get a butterfly or two when I start a new recipe, but it is not overwhelming, and I have the faith that it can be done if I do what I am supposed to do.  I have found that I truly love to cook.  There is something amazing about homemade food.  Maybe it is the lack of processing.  Maybe it is the freshness.  But maybe, just maybe it's the love.  I think it is all three.

The (de)Evolution of Electronics

I'm going to try something different today. A short story. Fiction.


I was inspired last night at dinner with my friend and roommate, Kelly. Both English majors in college, we tend to see the world in stories. And last night, we saw the makings of a potential story. After pondering the situation for a while, we decided two things:

1. The hilarity of the situation, with a little tweaking and imagination could make this a great story.

AND

2. It fits the letter E.

The backstory of this is that we saw a child of about seven dining with his father. We were happily talking away and filling in the happenings of our weekend to each other. In contrast, once seated, they figured out what they wanted off the menu, then the father proceeded to tell his son his schedule for tomorrow. Then, he handed his son his touch screen phone and the kid turned it on, found a video, and watched it through the remainder of dinner. They didn't speak at all after that.

Based on that, here's the story Kelly and I came up with.

The year is 2025. Two girls in their early thirties are sitting at dinner staring off into space. They are not talking to each other. It is obvious they are good friends, however seem to have nothing to say. Maybe they have been together for days on end? Maybe they are just at the lull in their friendship where communication is not important.

But maybe, just maybe, they do not know how to communicate over a meal.

Once they placed their order, a family was seated at the table next to them. Once the family ordered, they began to talk. They each told the family with excitement about their day, the information gathered in school, the stresses of work, what they were doing over the coming days. They even talked about current events, what they had read in the papers, seen on the news, the latest books they were reading. They seemed to have an endless stream of conversation.

This irritated the girls.

“Can you believe this?”, remarked one of them. "When we were kids, we didn't have to talk at dinner. We all had our gadgets and were completely preoccupied. No one had to even look at anyone else.”

“I know. I was just thinking the same thing. How obnoxious it must be to have to think of things to talk about. I was just enjoying how we always sit in silence.”, said the other.

“Oh how I miss the days of oblivion, when mom was on the phone and disregarded everything I said and did because she was too busy to notice. How dad was always checking his email. What happened? How did we get here?”

How they got there is in the last twenty years, technology has taken a hit. Smartphones, devices, and electronics in general had hit the proverbial wall. There wasn't anywhere to go but down. And backwards.

The absence of portable electronics has made it necessary for people to communicate again. As demand rose for more more more in our society, computers had to get bigger again, not smaller. Cell phones that did too much took up too much power and now have to be plugged into the outlet of your car. And the fatter our society as a whole had become, the more impractical touch screens and small buttons became, thus making everything larger in general so we could type with our fat fingers.

Gone are the days of instant access to anything and everything. And it has caused yet another generation gap. The mid-20s to late-30s crowd does not know how to talk to each other, or the people around them. They stare into space, longing for the days of Angry Birds and texting the person across from them. The late-30s to late-50s crowd can't stand not getting that email the second it is sent, and doesn't quite know how to function professionally without knowing what is going on on the other side of the world right now.

What is going on in Hollywood? Who is in rehab? Who is going to jail? Who hooked up on their latest movie set?

We have to wait until we get home to find out. OH HUMANITY!

In contrast, the younger people are talking. They are excited and animated when they speak to each other. They relay stories back and forth. Their stream of thought and communication is constant and seemingly never-ending. They talk with their hands. They talk and talk and talk. And their parents can't figure out where they learned such a thing.

This generation will know how to find information out for themselves. They will know where to look and how to access it, without relying solely on machines to do the work for them. They will know how to spell and punctuate and think. All for on their own accord. Their parents and teachers think them to be geniuses.

The two 30-somethings (and most of their generation) are sad and depressed – they feel they are the ones who truly know you don't know what you got till it's gone. They do not understand this new generation of thinkers. They live lives of silence, unable to communicate their thoughts and feelings into words because they have always had a machine to do it for them.

This is the beginning of something I think I will continue writing. I think there is more to this, more to find, more to write. It's an interesting switch on reality. I do miss the days when I had to wait to get home for a phone call. The days when I didn't panic because I don't have service for an hour inside a cement building.   The days when I didn't jump because my phone rang.  When I could listen to the radio for the entire car ride.

What do you think, fellow bloggers? Can you communicate with your friends without a machine? Are you amazed at the lack of communication in public exhibited around you?