Welcome to the official middle of the week. Let’s just get right into it. This weeks ‘Where’s The Beef?’ is not a person. Well… it is and it isn’t…. Oh hell… let’s just call it…

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The Gift of a Name

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You’re have a little one, congratulations.

(But frfr, 🎉🥳if you are!)

I make it a point to not ask what the gender nor what the name of the child is going to be. I’d sincerely hope that you’ve selected something that isn’t going to give the child a lifetime complex.

I get it, I really do. Y’all think that cute little spelling change in a popular name is unique, and like your child.. blah blah blah they are just as unique.

The kid is special to you because it’s yours.

This is usually this moment where the expecting parent unintentionally says the name and then…

Spells

It,

Out.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty proficient at spelling most common English names. I just feel like the puzzle piece this future kid will get stuck in the wrong edge piece and tear it half trying to get it apart. As you look up at me I have this odd smile and I’m staring….

Yes, that’s why. You’re welcome.

Awkward.

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I don’t know if it is because we as parents are trying to subconsciously remember, so we don’t fuck it up… or what. But what the fuck am I, as the non pregnant party suppose to do? I mean, hell, for the last 15 years Waste Management has managed to rename me by common law… I’ve never received a bill with the actual correct spelling of my name.

Then most ironic thing about the entire situation is, everyone is the world knows how to say the most difficult portion of my name, but that first letter..

Y’all got beef with that first letter!

It’s the first letter in the English Alphabet, for fucks sake.

אביבה

(Pronounced ahh-vee-vah). Origin: Hebrew
Translation: Springtime, Dewy or Fresh. Ideal for a female child born from March to May.

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I adore that last part. ‘Ideal for a female child born from March to May’. The Western World strikes again.

I’m a Leo. 🦁🤷‍♀️😂

‘A beautiful name for a beautiful girl’, my mother would say. Yeah, it isn’t like you have to deal with it, I’d think.

I legitimately had learned by the time I was 7, only homogeneously grown White Americans that weren’t Jewish had problems understanding and pronouncing my name.

Thanks Mom & Dad.

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I cannot sit here, and accurately describe the feeling of subconsciously envisioning knife handing a person in their throat because some just referred to you as ‘Viva La Vegas!’, again.

Fuck. Just thinking about it can be a trigger.

Never in my 40 years on this earth would I have ever imagined that I’d be asked if I owned an Insurance brand.

The next ignorant person to try to nick name me, ‘Paper Towel’- turn around and walk the other way please. For you’re own personal safety, and the safety of others including myself… please.

Or, what I like to refer to as ‘The Huhs’. A person can only repeat themselves so many times.

Listen Linda. If ‘Steve’ from ‘the IRS’ can call and pronounce it correctly… You need to do better doll. Can’t scam me for thousands when you can say my name right, darlin.

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Lest not forget, I have done this name giving three times. My younger ones all have names that are unique to them, but they don’t have the struggles of the additional 10 minute conversation that is ‘introducing yourself’.

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All of this being said… My name completely fits me. I had to learn to own it, to see the beauty and understand that my parents weren’t being assholes. They had selected a name that at the time of my adoption, and throughout multiple times in my life has provided me power.

My name is Aviva. I am a breath of fresh air. The crisp dewy springtime morning that relects the natural beauty of the forest. I am unique, and I am me.

But…

Please, call me Chef V.-🍋💋

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