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We've got the city blanketed with operatives ready to keep us up-to-date on Katie Holmes' every coffee-shop visit; we've found these fleeting moments of relative peace in an otherwise hyperscrutinized existence to be valuable opportunities for sympathizing with the plight of the world's most famous prisoner of love. A spy encountered Holmes returning to Peet's on the Sunset Strip this morning, and offered this report:

Damnit. Now I wish she'd find another coffee shop. Today, I'd say 10:15ish...Katie Holmes at Peet's again on Sunset across from Book Soup. She had one handler and...some sort of kid with her, a 12 year old? Her sister? A young adherent of the Church of Scientology? My pals and I instantly broke into 'pregnant' vs 'not pregnant' debate teams afterward. She was wearing a billowy shirt so it was hard to detect what, if anything, is goin' on down thar.

While perhaps innocuous at first glance, this latest incident is deeply troubling. Just three weeks ago, Holmes' coffee break seemed like her only chance at some me-time, a stolen moment to consider her plight in isolation, sigh while breathing deeply of the shop's dancing aromas, and perhaps briefly, wistfully imagine slipping into her red boots from Wonder Boys, a powerful symbol of a time both simpler and more fraught with promise. But since then, things have changed: Holmes' Starbucks run was tainted by the presence of a uniformed minder, and today's visit included both a "handler" and a suspicious child, perhaps a sister, perhaps a deceptively youthful-looking escort from the Centre charged with keeping tabs on Tom Cruise's betrothed treasure. We lament the apparent loss of Katie's lone moment of privacy, and fear that next we hear of her caffeine-seeking adventures, she'll be accompanied by an entire battalion of "coffee buddies" ensuring she never has to take another sip of that caramel macchiato in solitude again.