Various items

It's been a weird couple of weeks -- stressful and aggravating but cathartic. I wasn't feeling like I had much to say but I suppose I should jump back into the saddle again ...which I will do with some random observations/rants:

• If I hear one more word in the media, mainstream or otherwise (I'm looking at you, Air America Radio) about Eliot Freaking Spitzer I am going to stick my head out the window and start hollering like Howard Beale. Did the guy pay for his "seven diamond prostitute" with tax dollars supplied by the citizens of New York? No? Then Shut. The. Hell. Up. about it already! Why should anyone who is not married to, or otherwise related to, this guy care whether he frequents even, say, a "two diamond prostitute"? Yeah, he's a hypocrite. So are, unfortunately, many Democrats, and pretty much every Republican elected official, in one way or another. Until "Diaper Dave" Vitter and Larry "Wide Stance" Craig resign, I don't want to hear another goddamn thing about Spitzer.

• By all means, the Democratic candidates for president should have another debate. If they want us all to shoot ourselves in the head, that is.

• Speaking of which: Hilary, you need to go away now. It's all over but the screaming and crying about how it was Your Turn and you've been unfairly cheated out of your rightful legacy, or some damn thing. Just step aside and let Obama have his day. I wasn't sure at first if he'd earned it but now it seems he's got the chops. It's time for the country to unite behind Obama so we can start the hard work of taking our country back from the clowns who have done this to it. And to us.

• My husband, who has a Chinese last name equivalent to "Smith," and a not-so-common Chinese first name, was delayed in getting on a plane this week because there's apparently someone on the "No Fly List" with the same name. Once they verified his age, he was declared Not A Terrorist and allowed to go on his way. We'll see if we're as lucky the next time we try to fly somewhere...

• The Peanut seems to be slowly coming out of the spiral of really bad behavior we've been seeing, on and off, ever since she turned 3. What's interesting is she intersperses her nightmare tantrums with periods of incredible sweetness--she'll tell us she loves us 10 times a day. Mr. Fraulein and I keep thinking that it just must be really hard, sometimes, to be 3. "My hips hurt, Mommy," she'll say, as the growing pains come and go. She still has this unfortunate tendency towards car sickness, so we (and by "we" I mean my husband) are hauling the 9,000-pound car seat up to our third-floor condo way more often than we'd like. Luckily all the covers come off for easy washing. So we're trying to be understanding of the craziness that must be going on in that little head of hers as she tries to make sense of the world.

• It's been fascinating to watch the Peanut developing a sense of her own beauty. (On a side note, this whole topic has many complicated implications for me, since I spent much of my life being so convinced of my own ugliness.) But it turns out I must have some good genes in there somewhere, because in many ways she looks like me. Her cheeks and mouth are much like mine. But then she has those unimaginably lovely, sort of Asian eyes. When strangers see her, they sometimes do a double-take, and I imagine they're trying to figure out what her background is. In any event, though I hope it doesn't sound too obnoxious of me as the mom to say so, she is quite striking. And she's heard people say it enough times that she's starting to realize it for herself. Last night we played "fashion show," which is my ruse for making her try on things to see if they fit. I had been hoping to re-use last year's summer dresses, but at the rate she's growing, they're going to fall at her hips by this summer! She paraded in front of the mirror in outfit after outfit, a smile broadening on her face. It does my heart good to see her reveling in her own loveliness.