Musings on a Monday Morning from Mike Mullin…

The weekly Newsletter of Without A Vision Consultancy LLC

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August 3, 2020

Good morning!

Cool(er) weather for a couple days, just what the doctor ordered! And just like that the apples are turning red. We are losing sunlight at this Northern Hemisphere latitude at the rate of more than three (3) minutes per day; alarming. Happy Birthday to my dear friend, business partner, wife, spouse, co-parent, nurturer, colleague, co-grandparent, patient and faithful admirer forever forgiving! We soon will begin our 41st year hanging around together. Since August is the #1 vacation month of the year we’ll keep the next few of these Musings a bit shorter… one byte instead of two. Do you prune your petunias? Try it, you’ll be amazed at the results. Are you missing the summer Olympics?

When I was very young I remember going out to the garden to pick a ripe tomato three or four inches in diameter, slicing a perfect 1″ section out of its meaty middle, liberally salting it, putting it between two slices of buttered bread, and savoring it as the most amazing taste sensation I had ever experienced. Sometimes I would add slices of bell pepper or maybe an onion, but always the tomato, butter, bread, and salt combination was delicious beyond words.

I suppose it’s the old farmer in me, but is there a better feeling in the whole wide world than getting the lawn mowed on a hot humid day and then you come into the house soaking wet with sweat from head to toe and smelling just a little bit like gasoline fumes because of being shrouded in a toxic smog cloud for the last two hours and a few blades of grass are stuck to your skin and your clothing and your socks are cached all green with a little bit of dirt and mud mixed in right at the ankles and you can’t get your socks off because they are stuck to your skin with sweat — but luckily you wore your old socks at least — and so you have to wait to see if someone will help you and no one will and also your eyes aren’t focusing properly because you’ve got all kinds of dust and debris mixed in where it shouldn’t be and then all you want is some ice water or maybe some lemonade or ice tea if there were any?

What is the proper way to ask someone if she/ he/ they are doing okay nowadays?
- Apparently it is no longer okay to ask if someone is okay… nor to ask, “How are you doing?” and I truly want to know the approved salutation so I can improve my communication skills.
- I googled this and 3,860,000,000 hits came up — 3.86 billion! No wonder Congress is asking questions.
- Sorry, I don’t have time to read all of those — so if you, one of my readers knows, I will be grateful and anxious to learn.

Here is an absolutely worthless statistic I’ll pass along: In a continuing and cumulative on-line, unscientific survey, seventy-nine percent (79%) of respondents think a vaccine against the COVIDs is nine (9) or more months into the future.

McKinsey conducted research back in April and May to get a sense of the emotional toll related to the COVIDs, directly and indirectly.
- Any conclusions are subjective at best, but great care was taken to tally the data as accurately as possible.
- Respondents did not label their emotion, rather made comments or reported certain feelings and then the researchers put them into 16 pre-determined categories.
- Top three (3) most commonly reported emotions from among 800 respondents: Acceptance – Apprehension – Anticipation
- The three (3) least reported emotions: Disgust – Boredom – Anger
- Of course there are ten in the middle I’m not telling you about; could you list them?
- That was back in April and May… I wonder what August would reveal?
  - You can read more about this at: McKinsey Emotion Study.