Below are the most recent 4 friends' journal entries.

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
missmurchison	8:35a	Brrr It's 4 degrees below zero. I'm glad it's warmed up a bit. Yesterday, I had to bring in the bird feeder, scrape ice off it, and run hot water over the lid so that I could open and fill it. But it's very pretty out there, with lots of snow on the ground. It's also nice to see Christmas decorations going up. My favorite so far is about a half mile from my house. Someone has set up store mannequins in pink prom dresses and attached gold wings as part of his display. It looks like he's filming Attack of the Freaky Paris Hilton Angels. During the time it took to write this, the temp dropped to minus 3. I'd probably feel warmer if I got rid of the Weather Bug at the bottom of the screen. (Comment on this)
Monday, December 7th, 2009
missmurchison	10:41a	Alas, poor lizard Somehow, I was struck by this plaintive little story in the local paper: Mason City officials say one person was injured in a fire that apparently started when a shoe placed next to a heat lamp in the top of a fish aquarium overheated. The fire happened Sunday afternoon at a mobile home. Officials say the fire was contained to the aquarium that was a housing a lizard. Fire Capt. Richard Paulson says one person was injured and taken to a Mason City hospital. The person’s name was not immediately released. Paulson says the lizard died in the fire. Poor lizard. And I can just imagine the kind of living space where a shoe is likely to wind up on top of an aquarium. (Comment on this)
Sunday, December 6th, 2009
missmurchison	9:07p	Good grief! I can't stop laughing about this, although the fact that this guy is an elected official should give me pause. In the opinion of Arlington Mayor Russell Wiseman, President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday night on the war in Afghanistan was deliberately timed to block the Christian message of the "Peanuts" television Christmas special. Wiseman made the statements on his Facebook page, where he declared Obama to be a Muslim. Only people on Wiseman's "friend's list" had access to the post. ( Unsurprisingly, the mayor also doesn't get the Friends List concept ) I'll be over here, listening to Joe Cool's Blues, one of my favorite albums. Wynton Marsalis' dad Ellis wrote some of the music for the Peanuts specials, and Wynton and his brothers join their dad and other artists to record these favorites. Now, that's family values transformed into art. (Comment on this)
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
missmurchison	9:25p	jumping back in I've been so scarce on LJ for so long, I think I'm making more of this posting thing than it deserves. So I will just babble. I had the best Thanksgiving in a long time. My father died over a decade ago on Thanksgiving, very suddenly, and that cast a pall over the holiday for years. But I've reached the point in mourning where you welcome the reminders of the person you've lost. And memories of my dad were nicely bookended by the opportunity to see my kids, both of whom came home from college. M:TNG-1 was ill, but at least I was reassured she was getting a bit of rest, and emails indicate she's feeling better now. M:TNG-2 brought a delightful friend, or, rather, jwaneeta brought them both and the cranberry sauce. Mr. M slaved over the stove Wednesday night and all day Thursday, producing turkey with all the trimmings, including absolutely amazing fig stuffing. We set up and trimmed the Christmas tree, wandered around Iowa City, and jwaneeta dragged me out to the movies. We saw "2012,: which is the funniest film I've seen in ages, with the added bonus of pretty images of the Earth being destroyed. (Comment on this)