Mississippi has more fat people and more under-educated people living in poverty than any state in the nation. Hmmm...wonder if there's a connection?

My step-daughter immediately came to mind when I read this news. Their landlord called recently pleading with Mike to try to persuade his ex to pay her rent so he wouldn't have to evict them. Mike's response was that his daughter always has a home where she can go, and the ex can go to hell. I was not even that charitable.

A nineteen year old daughter who cuts off most contact with her dad, after child support obligations end, doesn't deserve to be rescued. She actually quit having anything to do with him when he had his stroke. She made unwise choices, IMO, and needs to see where that leads. I hate to see her homeless on the streets with her derelict mother, but she is still tethered by an umbilical cord that drags her further from her potential with every passing year. She's had several opportunities to cut that cord (she realized at a very young age that her mother never would), and she chose to stay attached. Her one encounter with employment outside their home lasted only a couple of months before her mother convinced her to stay at home and help her babysit the two children she keeps. When her former employer told Mike he would really like to have her back, he called her. She wouldn't answer her phone and did not return his call.

With very deficient homeschooling, no ambition, no money, she has a bleak future. A driver's license, a college degree, a social life, a job, none of that appeals to her enough to get her away from the toxic relationship with her mother. We've tried for years to motivate her. Nothing worked. A good dose of reality might do it when nothing else would. Or it could reinforce the martyr image she has of her "poor mother." She will be 40 years old before she realizes how totally cheated and deprived she's been by her maleficient mama.

On a happier note, choir rehearsals resumed last night with sweet song and merriment. David asked me to sing a solo on one of the new pieces. I didn't volunteer, but I knew he was talking about me when he said, "this solo needs a light, breathy, child-like soprano voice. (pause, pause) Cathy, you would be perfect." So I agreed to do it. I did not go to supper afterwards, but came home instead. I was really tired by the time we finished.