You know how people don't really understand your job? Try explaining one that involves this work product:

Sensing violence: An ethnography of mixed martial arts

This article describes the sensory experiences of fighting through an ethnography of mixed martial arts (MMA). MMA is an emergent sport where competitors in a ring or cage utilize strikes (punches, kicks, elbows, and knees) as well as submission techniques to defeat opponents. This sensory ethnography involves, inter alia, the documentation of the rhythms pertaining to the cadence of drills, the flow of sparring and grappling sessions, the attunement of bodies to other bodies through touch, the beat of music accompanying training sessions, the smell of sweat and flatulence, and the throbbing pain that is registered through taste. This article relies on 45 in-depth interviews with mixed martial art fighters and participant observation over a four-year period.

Operation Pedicure is about to get underway. To be immediately followed by Project Lie in the Sun Reading Magazines.

Oh! I need a pedicure. Maybe I'll do that next. I got some containers and plants, did that, and am now listening to what I assume is Porchfest on the next block over. Good times.

-t, note that I basically never watch Nova, but I really enjoy the click bait titles. Or whatever the tv listing version is.

Something's been munching on our container garden, a problem we didn't have last year. H took some chewed exhibits to two garden centers yesterday and nobody could tell him what the culprit was, or recommend a soil treatment or plant spray to make the leaves unpalatable for the whatnot. He did some pre-dawn sleuthing this morning, and caught some sort of beetle or weavil, found some leaves with droppings, and bundled it all up in a plant pot and took it to yet another nursery. Caterpillars, he was told, very fond of azaeleas and rhodies, both of which we have all around us. Either the eggs or larvae were apparently in the potting soil we bought--no way to effectively sterilize it.

So he was sold a topical spray concentrate that should work, but it must be sprayed directly on the miscreants, and he was also sold a spray bottle that will spray from any angle, to get under leaves and behind plants. There will be a midnight safari in the front bed tonight. Wish us monsters to slay.

The barberry bushes overwintered in their pots, and we have more or less recreated last summer's container garden. Pictures here.

I like your operations, -t, and would like to subscribe to your medical newsletter.

Ooh, pretty, Beverly! I bought some anti-bug flowers to go in one of my pots, so we'll see how that goes.

Both attempts highly successful! Today is all coming up -t so far.

Good luck with the teeny monster slaying, Bev. I'm picturing Fear, Itself.

I was amused that the very title you mentioned was up next, Jesse. Sadly, my DVR can't tell me if I've seen it before. I think I have.

Honestly, I'm sure it's for sweeps. How many Hitler topics can we get out of this science show??

Does sweeps matter for PBS? I guess everyone wants ratings.

-t, you inspired me, and I ran nearly 6 miles today. My fastest average pace in a while, too--it didn't hurt that all the hills were in the first 2/3 of the run, and the last 2 miles was all flat with a gradual downhill.

The dog, however, is very tired. I am going to have to dial back on her running, I think. She is, after all, 9.