May Pops

I've googled May Pops and was happy to see the first listing was from a good southern school - Auburn.

May-pop, Passion-Flower (Passiflora incarnata)Passion-flower
has long attracted the attention of amateurs and botanists alike. This hardy
perennial vine comes from a family of mainly tropical plants. Its genus,
Passiflora, is the only genus of its family in the United States. Two species
occur in our state, incarnata and lutea. Lutea is the yellow passion-flower only
rarely seen. Incarnata is the purple one, common and beautiful.
Passiflora
incarnata (usually called May-pop) has a blossom with five sepals and five
petals. It has a crown or corona of white or lavender fringe banded with purple.
In the center of the blossom is a column of united stamens enclosing a pistil
with three heads (stigmas). This beautiful complex blossom is exquisite in
detail.
This plant is a vine ten feet to twenty feet long, with alternate
leaves. The leaves are from two and one-half to six inches long and wide. Each
leaf is palmately three-lobed with finely serrated edges. At the base of each
blade are two small bumps (nectar-bearing glands).
The flower buds come in
the axils of the leaves, as do long tendrils which the vine uses for climbing
over whatever is near it. The fruit is an edible leathery berry (the may-pop).
It is the size and shape of a hen egg; green at first and turning yellowish as
it ripens. When stomped, it makes a loud pop. It blooms from late May
through October.
It is called Passion-flower because the early explorers
thought there was some resemblance in the structure of the blossom to the
implements of the crucifixion.

They grew wild in our backyard until my parents planted a huge garden. I loved playing with them. Maybe May Pops was my first real introduction to storytelling. There were various tales about the flowers. We used to tell one about a lady with a hat carrying two loaves of bread. You could pluck parts of the flowers and make the lady. Then there was the fruit. What a great sound it make when popped.

I got my May Pop plant last week and today planted it. I can't wait to see those flowers. There still seems something wrong about paying good money for something that grew wild. But, it will be worth it. If you want yours go to Gurneys. They are only $7.95.

March Madness

No, this isn't about basketball.

And for any non-storytelling and NSN readers, I apologize ahead of time for the rant.

But hey, this is MY blog, I can rant if I want.

Today, my former employer the National Storytelling Network, lost an excellent Board member. Finally, there had been someone on the board who not only knew about fundraising, but had indeed been successful at raising those funds. David Joe Miller would have done great things for the organization. Sadly, he has resigned.


Let me add them up:
I resigned
Holly resigned
Jason resigned
Laura resigned
Eric resigned

That's the staff members since July 2007 who have left.

Then there were the three board members and now DJM.

I don't know the reasons for three of the four BOD members. But I do know that when all this turmoil can be traced back to one source, there is a MAJOR problem.

This madness has to end!

Way to go, Rishi

My friend Rishi defended her thesis last week. She is one more step closer to her Masters degree in the storytelling program at ETSU.She writes about the day on her blog.

I met Rishi in Feb. 2004 when I interviewed at NSN. She told me about the program and how she hoped to finish by Dec. 2004. Now three plus years later, you might say that Rishi is a procrastinator. I don't.

The whole time Rishi and I were together at NSN, she worked on her story and her thesis.

She had just married in 2003.

In 2004, there were the newlywed adjustments, buying a house, moving, plus work, flying to Bellingham for the conference, being a friend, etc.

The next year, she worked on her story and thesis, was a wife, was pregnant, was a mother, worked at NSN, was a friend, etc.

Then in 2006, she worked on her story and thesis, worked at NSN, was a wife, mother, friend, etc. Oh, yeah, pregnant and mother again.

She left NSN in Dec. 2006, which was a great loss. She had been the corporate memory as well as a wonderful face of NSN. Now I was the corporate memory (almost 3 years) LOL

Since then she has moved to NC then to WV. And last week she made another step forward to that Masters degree.

Procrastinator? No way. Persistent, preserver, prevailer, pursuer.

That's Rishi.

Way to go!

And yes, I took the picture from your blog.