Losing Daylight

Musings on a Monday Morning from Mike Mullin…

The weekly Newsletter of Without A Vision Consultancy LLC

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July 1, 2019 – Losing Daylight

Welcome to July!

We’ve already lost about four (4) minutes of daylight… all of it on the front end.

Approximately three and five-eighths inches of rain fell in our yard the last couple of weeks; more than we really need to keep things growing.
- More than an inch fell during one-half hour late yesterday morning.
  - Some parts of Minnesota are experiencing flash floods, including down near my home town near the Zumbro River.
“… we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honour.”
- Who are these people making this pledge — and to whom, why/ where/ when?
  - If you’ve enjoyed the popular and modern-era opera, Hamilton, you have observed George III portrayed as an effeminate buffoon who provides welcome comic relief in the midst of this Greek tragedy.
    - In Miranda’s version of history George III is without meaningful power, without resolve, without intelligence, a laughable lout.
      - But, hold the phone, it’s not quite true.
        History is always the greatest lie (Hughes) and in the case of Hamilton we are left to think independence from Great Britain carried with it few risks…
        …while, of course, it carried with it the great risk of death and the loss of everything, including one’s honour.
Do you ever clean your freezer? The one that’s companion to your refrigerator?
- I’m sure you do. I tackled the job Saturday morning with the resolve of thawing that little hose that drains the water away during the so-called self-cleaning/ no-frost cycle.
  - My experience is it doesn’t do either, but…
    - I’m sure you have each and every food item clearly labeled, inventoried, and scheduled for consumption.
      - Thought I did, but I don’t/ didn’t.
        What are/ were some of those items and what exactly warranted the importance of saving and freezing them at the time?!
        Funny thing is, I’m sure I’ll do it again — and again… because it’s learned behaviour: You don’t throw away perfectly good food — until a year later.
I met a new neighbor, a young woman, who nearby is cultivating more than seventy-five (75) different vegetables and herbs in her front yard, back yard, and side yard.
- I didn’t know there were that many different varietals, but apparently there are.
  - I plan to monitor her progress… she is focused, visionary, passionate, hard-working, joy-filled — and she gives tours.
After twelve years of waiting a family of Eastern Bluebirds has made its home in our Francis Schellinger bird house.
Years of independent research have led me to conclude the average motorist is unaware, unresponsive, and unrepentant when it comes to yielding to a pedestrian in a crosswalk.
There is no such thing as a perfect relationship.
- Whatever you might observe, there are things you’re not seeing or hearing if you perceive a relationship to be perfect.
  - Healthy, motivated people work to strengthen and sustain what they know is imperfect;
    - they don’t focus on the difficulties, but rather on the benefits that accrue to those who value and desire an acquaintanceship, a friendship, or something more.
I enjoy excursions with Laurie to various retail outlets. We don’t go often in tandem, maybe four or five times a year. While she searches the indoor aisles of the stores I hike the outdoor parking lots for a mile or two of exercise. Sometimes I pretend to be a cart-getter; I once corralled 14 carts in a TJ Maxx parking lot — and there was deep snow. The manager thanked me.
- On a recent outing I watched an apparently capable young man perched behind the steering wheel of a pickup truck watering the decorative bedding plants from his half-open door. The water was coming from a large tank — maybe 300 gallons? — mounted in the back of the truck which featured a hose leading from the tank ending with a hand-operated control valve functioning on gravity. This young worker had probably been given instructions to, “Take the pickup, fill the tank with water, and water all the flowers in this whole parking lot.” The well-meaning youngster had completed the watering of about 50 giant pots when I first started observing him. The valve must have been set at fire hose strength because as he watered he systematically uprooted. Thousands of bedding plants — spitunias, geraniums, impatiens, pansies, Etc. — lay dying in his wake as he moved on to the next pot and the next and the next… His boss had neglected to provide a little bit of teaching, guidance, mentoring, modeling, practicing, monitoring.
  - Maybe the vision was unclear — or not communicated.
“The single defining quality of leaders is the capacity to create and realize a vision.” (Bennis)