Random Friday thoughts

In no particular order:

-- In a little over five weeks the Peanut will turn 4. Hour by hour she is shedding the babyish aspects of her personality and becoming more fully a kid. She speaks more articulately than George W. Bush (not that that sets the bar too high) and she is suddenly full of attitude. Which scares me just a teeny bit. There are moments lately when a latent 13-year-old jumps out of the three-and-three-quarters-year-old, and it's hard to know how to respond to that. Luckily these little eruptions of teenager-like attitude are interspersed with her more usual sweetness and overwhelming overall cuteitude.

-- The Peanut has announced that she wants to be a "purple superhero" for Halloween. I have no idea what this means, except I suspect it will involve me heading to a craft store and searching for cheap purple fabric to make into a cape. (NOTE: I am not in any sense crafty. This is going to be one crappy-looking Halloween costume...)

-- Of all the aspects of the whole "John McCain is so rich he can't remember how many houses he owns" controversy, the one that amuses me the most is the thing about the 9-car Starbucks run. Nothing says you're a man of the people like heading out for your morning cup-o-joe in a platoon of armored limousines. I realize the guy has to have a security detail and everything, but sending nine cars to get him one cup of coffee? Really? So environmentally-sensitive of him. As I've said before, you almost have to wonder whether there's an Obama mole inside the McCain campaign. The mistakes they're making are taking on epic proportions now.

-- I am incredibly psyched for the Olympic closing ceremonies. You wonder how they'll top the opening events.

-- And I'm incredibly annoyed about the delay in release of the Harry Potter "Half-Blood Prince" movie. The idea that the studio will make more money by holding onto it until next summer, instead of releasing it this November as originally planned, is preposterous. If the release date was a Wednesday in February, the Potter fans would be there with bells on. With this franchise it doesn't matter at all when they release it. Very aggravating development, although I guess this will give the Potter fan blogs something to talk about for the next several months.