I straight up don’t care. Last year I got rid of every pair of shoes I own that doesn’t feel totally comfortable. I am officially an old. And I’m left with winter boots, fall boots, Birkenstocks, running shoes for the gym, one pair of wedge heels for “dressing up”. And my tap shoes.

Counter-counterpoint: Your feet are jealous of my feet but are too embarrassed to say anything to you.

My husband calls them Jesus Boots. So am I lesbian Jesus?

YES. As soon as the daily high hits 10C, I'm in my Birkenstocks all day, every day. I fucking jog in them. My feet love me now.

This always amazes me. My kids have hated water from day one. Which might be genetic.

Seriously.

Yes. We went ring shopping together. Saved us craploads of cash because I picked a non-diamond. Lord only knows how much he would have spent.

I’m so sorry about your dad. My great grandfather also had ALS. I never understood all the complaints about mass donation to worthy cause. The ice bucket challenge was the Internet doing its finest work. It's great to know that people will benefit directly from the campaign.

The university stuff is a separate dual track thing. I don’t know how it’s funded, but it’s open to all students in the city (provided they have the grades for it). The actual teaching thing - while the teachers are fully qualified and have classroom experience, I don’t think the pay is the same. They do it for the…

No, we don't pay for that. It's covered by the ministry. In fact they give us money to pay for sports and art programs. :P I agree that standard online stuff is not going to work for most. But conversely some of us have strange kids that don't function well in a standard public school.

I don't know where you live, but the online stuff here is with a teacher who only has a handful of students. Ours last year only had 10. And they are local so you can get together. They even do class trips. They also run labs and lectures at the university.

You think that kids don’t experience all the same sorts of social interactions outside of school? You’ve clearly never been to a dance studio. :P In any case, the point is moot in the case of my daughter. She was not socializing at school. She didn’t speak to anyone. She sat in a corner all petrified for a year. She…

Has anything remotely normal happened at this event? There’s a new story about something totally bizarre every five minutes. I can barely keep up.

I cackled loudly. I saw it going south and refused to join my husband at the dinner table so I could see the pathetic result.

I enjoyed Flip or Flop one time. It was a couple weeks ago. They LOST money on the house. It was fucking glorious.

Will there be a quiz to detect the probability of finding shiplap in my walls?

Boo. I didn't want to know that.

Yes, and that is why you meet in person from time to time. They do online discussions. It’s not perfect and I’m not even sure I’ll do it because my daughter might choose to go back to school before then (we are working on severe anxiety issues at the moment). But I don’t think it’s the disaster you make it out to be.

Would you rather I lied? I've certainly seen some giant fails out in the community. Like I went to this group thing and the parents were all talking about how they can't get their kids to write a complete sentence and their kids were 8-12 years old. Didn't go back to that group again. And don't even get me started on…

I don’t do what a teacher does though. I teach my one kid (soon two). I understand her. There are no behavioural issues. She’s at one level. I don’t have to take charge of 25 different kids and present material in a way that is engaging and understandable for all of them. It’s not anywhere close to the same.