Good luck, suela. I hope the staff can manage your mom and give you guys some relief.

Owen and I had a discussion on marriage equality yesterday when he asked me if I would have voted for Reagan. We discussed the GOP's current platform and I used marriage equality as an example because we have a lesbian couple who are close friends here in town and that's something concrete that the kids can relate to.

Owen thought on it and said, "You mean N and A are...I'm not sure this word is appropriate to use...gay?" I assured him it's totally ok in this context. Then Liv said, "You mean that they can't get married? I'm going to say something bad about republicans. They're bitches!"

Then I had to explain to Liv that no, they are not all that way but the official platform is.

I can't wait until they get to vote.

::high fives Liv and Owen::

So, poker fans, what do you think?

Manhattan doctor introduces “Pokertox’’ to help give card players a poker face - NYPOST.com

Card players who don’t want to give themselves away and tip their hand can turn to a Manhattan doctor who says bet on him — and “Pokertox.”

Dr. Jack Berdy, an East Side doctor of aesthetic medicine, just launched the idea of using Botox to “allow people to gain a poker face’’ in a service he calls Pokertox.

“Very few people can maintain a real poker face,’’ said Berdy. “They have some ‘tells,’ some expression that gives away that they have a good hand or a bad hand’’ to an opponent.

He said he and his patients would go over those ‘‘tells’’ and the expressions that would give away a hand.

Some players look at their cards and ‘‘might raise their eyebrows or raise one eyebrow’’ if they do or don’t like what they see.

“Some squint, or furrow their brows,’’ Berdy said.

“We can inject Botox appropriately’’ so the other player doesn’t get the message that they’re angry, disappointed or happy.

“What someone sees across the table is no movement,’’ he said.

Pokertox costs an average $600 to $800 and lasts three to four months, he says.

The idea came to Berdy because he used to be a gambler and his specialty is Botox — “and they go together.’’

It doesn't say how many poker players have received this treatment.

Cash, I love your kids. And that you tell us hilarious kid stories. Then again, I'm one of those people that does not complain about friends posting endless baby pictures, because I enjoy it much more than lots of statuses copied word-for-word that people need to Snopes first.

I think what stuns me most about Cash's conversation is that Owen knows who Reagan was. Casper schooled our neighbor (also aged 9) just yesterday on marriage equality, but she has no idea who Reagan was.

Owen freaks me out on a daily basis.

Wow, is he going to make campaign ads, too? (I hope so.)

Owen is really cool.

My mother, bless her heart, is stymying the skilled professionals. "She's really strong!" said the staffer I just talked to. Yes, she is.

Dad took her out for a drive, dunno what good that will do.

Reacher is a BIG GUY, his size plays a factor in almost every book. Just another reason not to like Tom Cruise.

Do you hate Tom Cruise for taking the role? Or is this another incidence of an actor casting himself?

I did some wikipedia reading about the character, and it sounds interesting. And the author is, at least publicly, on board with the size differential in the casting.

Tangentially related, I found a page about cuts made to achieve a specific British rating. Usually when this happens the same cuts are what goes out to all of the English speaking audiences, right?

tommy,

people can manipulate their faces okay when playing poker, but what is more revealing is when a player gets the shakes due to adrenalin. No amount of botox is going to hide the tremor after someone gets a good hand.

the other thing that I would add is that you can also play poker from a strictly mathematical approach (play the odds) which is less "sexy", but gets the job done. No need to worry about poker faces.