Three different people I tried to hire for three different purposes since Friday called me to say their trucks have broken down and they were waiting for them to be towed.

I blame my sister who is making a killing in the hiring business and taking all the hiring luck allotted to the family.

What’s really sad about Turkey’s failed coup is that the people very clearly and aggressively rejected it. It’s not just this coup that they rejected. It’s Kemal Ataturk’s entire vision of the country’s future. 

Turkey is a magnificent country with a great culture but Ataturk’s ideas are still way to progressive for most of the Turkish people, even now in the 21th century. And Europeans did all they could to make the EU-oriented plan for Turkey’s future look as unappealing as possible. 

It’s not Erdogan that’s the problem. Just like in Russia Putin isn’t the problem. It’s that the people refuse to look forward and grasp onto outdated ways of life that keep clashing with modern reality in painful and violent ways.

There is a whole group of poor, sad FSB* agents whose job consisted of surreptitiously passing clean urine to the doped up Russian athletes at international sporting events. It was actually their official job. Paid for by the government. To pee in a vial and sneak it to drugged athletes.

Just imagine Obama or Bush or even Reagan ordering the FBI agents to pee and rush the urine to the Olympics. These are cultural differences for you.
*Former KGB. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Turned on the convention and saw Paul Ryan on stage, making hissing noises. After almost deciding that the fellow must have taken a complete leave of his senses, realized that he was simply shushing the protesters in the audience. Turned off the convention. 

People, I’m sorry but I don’t think I will be finishing this biography. Lubow is a horrible biographer. I got through about 1/3 of the book and I can’t take any more of it. 

Lubow’s problem is that he is so excited about having met people who knew Diane that he’s entirely incapable of filtering anything that they tell him. He just dumps all of the information his sources gave him, irrespective of how trivial it is.

For instance, there is some woman called Pati who was an acquaintance of Diane’s. There are two interminable pages on why this Pati person ate melons with a spoon and not with a fork. How is this related to Diane’s photography? It’s not. But Lubow is so in thrall to this Pati that no detail about her is too trivial for him to relay. It is very clear that Pati was jealous of Diane’s talent but Lubow fails to take her petty jabs at Arbus with even the tiniest grain of salt. It’s unclear why he doesn’t switch from the subject of Diane’s photography, which obviously bores him, and write a biography of this Pati character instead since he’s so into her.

Whenever Lubow actually begins to discuss Arbus’s work, he slips into meaningless gossip within a couple of paragraphs. There are pages on how Arbus walked to the park with another acquaintance  (at least, it’s not the blasted Pati) and watched their kids play. One can only be grateful that they never watched paint dry because I have no doubt that Lubow would happily dedicate a couple of chapters to this fascinating process. (But there is a photo of Pati waiting for her nail polish to dry, just in case you are curious about her nail painting habits.)

The only kind of analysis of Arbus’s art that Lubow is capable of producing is to tell the readers that Diane was in a bad mood because of her period and that influenced her. And how does he know about the period? Right you are, the omnipresent Pati told him. 

I don’t believe I need any more information on Pati’s life or any more gossip about which of Diane’s acquaintances had sex with another acquaintance 60 years ago. I’ll just look at the photographs online. 

I have many strange habits. For instance, I love to drink cold yesterday’s tea out of wine glasses. Yesterday’s tea is supposed to be poison and serious tea drinkers would crucify me for this but it’s my favorite beverage. Only from wine glasses, though, for some reason. 

By the way, does anybody know where we can get those enormous wine glasses that people use on the TV show Scandal? I don’t like wine but N does and he would love to have such glasses.

I made these myself. They are a gift for my niece Klubnikis. She had a little brother and a little sister-cousin this year, and she needs something to make her feel special. 

These are a surprise. A hope it doesn’t occur to anybody to show her the photo.

Melania Trump’s plagiarism was not the only scandal of her speech. It was equally shocking how poor her English is. This is not a minimum-wage maid from Miami. This is somebody who could hire a battalion of the best language teachers in the world. And she chooses not to in a show of stunning disrespect for the country her husband wants to run.

As I always say, it is a duty of immigrants to assimilate and make themselves comfortable to locals. The locals around here are too polite to mention that this supposedly multilingual person was straining to read Michelle Obama’s words off the  teleprompter so painfully that it was uncomfortable to watch. But I’m from the same part of the world as Melania,  and I have to admit that plagiarism, hatred of language learning, and a profound contempt for “idiot Americans” who are only fit to be bamboozled and robbed are what we grow up with. Some of us make a choice to work long and hard to get rid of this sorry baggage. Others, however, choose not to.

Trump is already busily fellating Putin:

According to multiple accounts, the Trump campaign has successfully worked behind the scenes to make sure the new Republican platform would not pledge the lethal defensive weapons Ukraine has been pleading for from the United States. Trump’s forces have tabled a platform amendment that would call for maintaining or increasing sanctions against Russia. Removing sanctions and blocking lethal military assistance to Ukraine are the two primary goals of Putin’s foreign policy. The Republican platform is handing those goals to Putin on a golden platter.

He’s a strong negotiator like I’m a Mexican opera singer. Rolling over and giving the antagonist everything he wants before even being asked is every shade of pathetic. The next step, I’m sure, will be Trump licking Putin’s boots and wagging his tail in an ingratiating manner.

It’s now crystal clear why all the Ian Welshes are so pro-Trump.

Mondays are my household-running days, so I’m missing all of the excitement at the Republican convention. By Monday, I always accumulate sufficient guilt for not doing anything around the house and being a free rider, so I attack household chores with a vengeance. At the end of the day, the guilt is appeased and I feel free to do nothing for the rest of the week.

Today I did the following:

– made mushroom stew. N and I are going vegetarian for the next two weeks. It will be a culinary challenge for me.

– made arrangements for the handyman to come this week to repaint the deck.

– made arrangements for a carpet cleaner to come on Wednesday. 

– tried to get a shrub remover to come in but they are all booked up for the next 2 months. A bagworm ate one of our shrubs and I’m afraid it will eat the second one.

– so I also removed the worms that migrated to the second shrub and drowned them in soapy water. I’m an insectophobe, and this was a major features.

– did the dishes.

It doesn’t sound like a lot but I have an infant here and that’s the best I can do during her naps.