One of the nice things WordPress.com does for their bloggers is prepare an Annual Report that summarizes statistics like number of views, most popular posts, and the ways in which readers reached the blog.   It’s one of the things that makes WordPress a great place to blog.  The Annual Report on Bud’s Blog starts out like this (take a look at the report, it’s very cool):

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 25,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 9 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.  Click here to see the complete report.

You probably know by now that I’m a stats watcher, so there were no real surprises but it certainly deserves some comment.   Let’s start with filling the Sydney Opera House for 9 nights.   There would be a lot of empty seats, I’m afraid.  First of all, we all know that many of our visits aren’t readers but bots, those annoying little programs that visit websites, leaving comments or web addresses for the unwary to follow.  Everyone knows bots don’t do opera.   Since Bud’s Blog has a Home Page that shows only excerpts of each post, some visitors arrive at my Home Page giving me more that one view per visitor.  I’m not complaining … just don’t reserve the Opera House yet.

My official Annual Report says that I had 366 posts in 2011, even though did Postaday2011.  It wasn’t a leap year … I accidentally published a post prematurely and wrote a second post to explain to my email subscribers why they couldn’t find it.   It’s no surprise that most of my readers were referred by Facebook, WordPress and Blogdumps with email subscribers arriving from mail.yahoo.com.  Unexpectedly, the search terms that most often led people to Older Eyes were meditation, connecting the dots, after here, liquid amber and old man shoes.  I tried Googling all of these terms and Bud’s Blog was nowhere in sight, so go figure.  But really?  Old man shoes?

Only two of the five most viewed posts in 2011 were written in 2011.   The most viewed post, Monday Smiles 9/5/2011, was about my obsession with USC Football and introduced my idea of a Perfect Day … USC wins, both UCLA and Notre Dame lose.  The second most popular post, Connecting the Dots, was written in January of 2010.  The poor Mom hoping to find dot-to-dot puzzles instead will be treated to a treatise on Connecting the Dots as a metaphor for life.  Number 3 on the 2011 hits list was The Living Desert, a description of the hazards of living in the desert, wrapped around memories of Disney nature movies.   Number 4 was Sixty-Freakin’-Six, my birthday post from 2010 and featuring the best old man birthday picture ever.   Number 5, After Here, was a November 2010 rumination on life after death brought on by the film, Hereafter.   Only one, Sixty-Freakin’-Six, would make my top fifty favorite posts list.  Go figure again.  What I like has nothing to do with what gets viewed … maybe I should write posts I don’t like.

There’s one statistic that needs no discussion.   Terri, Jeni, Meleah, singlecell and Granny1947 account for 755 comments on Older Eyes – Bud’s Blog during 2011.   Thanks to them and everyone else who took the time to comment.  Thanks to my lurkers, too.

Although I’m educated, my education has been mostly scientific.  I’m not culturally educated and I’ve never been inclined to pick up a book to learn about, say, Claude Monet.  When it comes to the arts, I know what I like but I don’t know a lot about what I know I like.  Ask me, When was the Baroque Period in music?  Google.  How old is Dave Brubeck?  Google.   Friday is my time to learn a little about the things I’ve loved through the years, motivated by passing it along to anyone who might be interested.  Friday is the day when I let Wikipedia and the internet educate me.  It’s good for the sixty-something brain and for the sixty-something soul.

This week’s Favorite is a good example.   If a say John Williams to most people, they either say, Who? or, Star Wars, thinking, of course, of the prolific American composer of numerous film scores.  However, this week’s Favorite is John Williams the classical guitarist.  My first exposure to Williams was his recording of Cavatina, written by Stanley Myers (I Googled that) and used as the theme for the Deer Hunter (knew that).   I became an ardent fan.

What I didn’t know was that he was born in Australia (I thought he was American) and emigrated to England in 1952, where he studied piano at the Royal College of England because they did not have a guitar department (he later founded one).  He studied with Andres Segovia, making him one of the few living guitarists with a link to the master.  Although he has recorded practically the entire repertoire for classical guitar … and extended it by commissioning works … he is perhaps best known for bringing attention to the works of Paraguayan guitarist and composer, Augustin Barrios, whom he considers the greatest of composers for the guitar.   As a teacher, he has complained that because of the complexity of many works, guitar education has focused too much on getting through the notes and too little on phrasing and tone.  He encourages ensemble playing with easier pieces for his students.  Williams also has his own website where he provides free downloads of his transcriptions and compositions for guitar, as well as notes on the music.

In this video, Williams plays Barrios’ La Ultima Cancion to a live audience.  You get to see the ease with which he plays this beautiful piece and the silence that settles over the audience as he does so.  Be sure to notice the faces of the musicians in the orchestra as they listen.  And, most of all, enjoy.

But, OK, theoretically, what if I did decided to have cosmetic surgery on this interesting face of mine.  What would I change?  It would make sense, I suppose, to emulate the movie stars my wife has loved over the years … and for years, Muri has loved the baby blues of a certain deceased star, who coincidentally remained married to the same woman for life.  What do you think?

I’m not sure that another actor who’s up for Best Actor this year would make it to Muri’s Hottest Men list, but I know most of the ladies think he’s gorgeous (really?).  And he does have great hair that I’d be willing to borrow, even if I don’t think much of his acting.  Yes, I’m in the minority there, too, what a surprise.

I don’t know whether it was because I was in one of the first integrated fraternities at University of Connecticut or not, but Muri’s always had an eye for African American men, so I’m sure I can’t go wrong with the smile of this two time academy award winner.

Yes, the nose.  If there was one feature I’ve been kidded about the most, it’s the old schnozzola but it was really important to me to preserve the Reed family tradition slightly right-facing beaks (7.5°, to be exact).  This member of the Huff Post Hollywood’s Hottest Older Men club had just the proboscis I needed.  The ears?  No, they’re perfect.  So, meet the new Older Eyes.

Let me say this (about that, as Richard Nixon often said).  I really do think it’s better to accept your appearance than to mess with it except in cases of disfiguration but I also can understand that if a tuck here and a pull there makes you feel better about yourself, it’s probably worthwhile.  I won’t hold it against you (actually, Muri won’t let me hold it against you … rimshot, please).  Frequently, though, people spend a lot of money and I can’t even see the difference (think eyelid surgery … when’s the last time you said, Look at the eyelids on that chick … dude … whatever?).  Can you really feel like a man when you’ve had full body hair removal?  What’s next?  Pantyhose?   And I don’t understand the extremes that some people go to.   Is there anyone who’s not creeped out by Joan Rivers or Cher?  Yes, Kenny Rogers, too.  And why do women insist on starving themselves until they look like a refugee (which eliminates their breasts, which are about 80% fat) then having implants designed for Sophia Loren?  I don’t get it.

For anyone that’s interested, I think older women are beautiful.   Here is Older Eyes’ list Things That Make an Older Woman Sexy:

1.  She’s comfortable in her own skin.
2. She’s able to laugh at her imperfections.
3. She’s more attractive than she thinks she is (aka humility)
4. She wears her age with grace.
5. She dresses stylishly without trying to look 20.

None of this requires surgery.  However, you don’t have to look around much to know that not every old coot would agree.

Can you identify the source of all my facial upgrades?

Sunday, I posted Faceless, centered on a memorial to John Berry I found along the trail behind Yorba Regional Park.  John was the homeless man murdered over a week ago here in Anaheim Hills, and a letter pinned to a tree talked about a six year friendship with John.  The letter touched me deeply and Faceless was the result.   Within an hour I received a lovely comment from chattingwithspirit, who lives in Hampton, Southern England.  Thank you for opening my eyes, she said.  I posted a link to Faceless on Facebook (hmmm) as I do sometimes when I particularly like a post.  Sunday my regulars showed up to comment.  I love you, regulars.  Monday, things got interesting.   My views began to climb … by nine a.m. I had more views than I do all day most times.   Lovely comments showed up from two people, Carolyn and Abagail, who knew John Berry.   That night, as I was writing Monday Smiles, another comment popped up.  It began, Dear Oldereyes, I am the one who left the note. Someone tagged me on facebook when they posted your blog.  It was from Krista, the woman who had left the note by the trail.  I was astonished.  She left a long and beautiful comment about her friendship with John Berry.

Faceless has had almost 300 views since Sunday.  That’s not exactly viral but it’s close enough for Older Eyes.   It’s been posted on the Facebook page of  the remembering John Berry homeless memorial group, a group I’ve since joined.  I consider that an honor since I was the guy who never talked to John, that joined his fan club posthumously.  I learned that Abigail is John’s niece.  I’ve had lovely Facebook comments on my post from family and friends, one in particular from my daughter, who said, Your blog post has touched so many people! I am so proud that you are my dad!  Gulp.

Many years ago, I was a golfer.  Though I don’t play anymore, I’ve always understood what keeps people coming back, even when they stink.  It’s a seductive game.  You can shank the ball all over the fairway for twelve holes, then on the thirteenth, you can hit a perfect shot that goes in the cup from 160 yards out or drop your tee shot six inches from the pin.   You’re Phil Michelson for just a few minutes and you’re hooked again.   I think blogging is like that.    You write and write and write.  Some good posts, some not so much, some forced.  Some days, nobody seems all that interested … including, perhaps, yourself.  Then … BOOM … a post comes out just the way you hoped.   It takes off and people are touched.  You’ve got your blogging hole-in-one to keep you going for the next six months.

Here’s the thing about Faceless, though.  I never knew I could be touched myself through the comments I received … or by the words of the people I met.  Or, for that matter, by the memory of a homeless man I never knew.  I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s been a little miracle.   Thank you.  Thank You.

It turned out that the leak is due to a flaw in the original roof construction, a place where the rain could seep under the tiles along the flashing.   So, OK, it’s Top Sites Tuesday – Two Thoughts on Tuesday and this is Thought Number One … How does a flaw in the roof show up 17 years after the house was built?    The roofing guy says, It looks like one of the tiles shifted.  That’s why it’s leaking.  I moved it back but the flashing needs to be replaced.   I can do it tomorrow.   So, for a tidy sum, our leak will be fixed tomorrow.  Of course, tomorrow, it won’t be raining so there will be no leak.  But really, a shifted tile?

Then, when I got back to my office, a clue.  Out of the blue my ceiling fan started all by itself, then a few seconds later, it changed speed.   What the hey? I said, quickly turning it off, suspecting a short circuit.  Later I turned it back on and everything worked fine.  Gradually I figured it out … Thought Number Two … I’ve been visited by a Tile Moving, Fan Futzing Gremlin.  Man, hope it’s gone.  I also hope that you enjoyed this silly little post, that you’ll push my button … gently … to make me Number One on Top Sites Tuesday #135.

Come Join Top Sites Tuesday and be #1 on BlogDumps!
The purpose of this Meme is to encourage
Networking between bloggers to have fun while doing it!
Make sure to visit all the other participants and leave comments.

Kitty turned out to be a very large cat, weighing in at over 15 pounds.   He loved people and he loved sleeping … if he could sleep on a lap, he was in heaven.   When I started working at home, Kitty became my office cat.  When I was working in my office he was either sprawled out on my desk or on my lap.  He also spent the night in my office to that he wouldn’t roam around the house.   While it’s very nice to always have company in your office, it has its disadvantages, the biggest of which is that the office must be equipped with a cat box that requires regular emptying if the office is to be liveable, in spite of the array of odor resistant litters available.   It means that the kitties track litter around the carpet, shed cat hair everywhere and occasionally leave a hair-ball on your desk.  If you are a cat lover, you know that the inconvenience is well worth the number of smiles a feline companion brings and Kitty was no exception.  Kitty was a lounger.   You never knew where he’d be stretched out, asleep or just lounging …

... on our bed ...

... or on the kitchen table ...

... or on my night stand ...

... or enjoying a good book ...

... or in the sink ...

... or (of course) in Older Eyes' lap.

When Kitty was twelve years old, he developed a common but debilitating feline ailment called hyperthyroidism.   Radioiodine therapy was expensive  and required that he stay at a special facility for a week but business was good, so we went ahead with the treatment, which gave us four more years of Kitty’s company.   It was worth every cent.   I still miss him sometimes when I’m alone in my office … but I also smile whenever I think about him.  It’s Monday.  I’m remembering Kitty and smiling.

Yorba Linda and Anaheim Hills are quiet suburban community where many people live but few actually work, what we always called bedroom communities.  In the years we’ve been here, only the death of Richard Nixon (who was born in Yorba Linda), the dedication of the Richard Nixon Library and the periodic wildfires that sweep through our hills attract the attention of the national news.   That changed on Friday, January 13 when a homeless man was murdered in Anaheim Hills near a fast food restaurant.   A bistander by the name of Donny witnessed the vicious stabbing and chased the man into a local mobile home community, where the police apprehended him.  The killer, an Iraq veteran, had killed three other homeless men after stalking them over a period of two weeks, stabbing them up to forty times.

The Santa Ana River, which flows through Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda is surrounded by park-like bike trails and provides plenty of bridges that can provide shelter to the homeless.  During the day, Yorba Regional Park provides picnic tables and restrooms.  At any given time, there are a half dozen or so homeless men that I see during my time in the park or riding along the river trail.   I recognize them more by their clothes or by their gait or by a shopping cart or bicycle loaded with their belongings.  They’re Faceless, not because they don’t have faces but because, like the businessman in Phil Collin’s song, I’m uncomfortable around the homeless.  I don’t look them in the eye.  If they ask, I may or may not give them some money but I don’t try to strike up a conversation.

On my way to the park on Wednesday, I stopped at our local Carl’s Jr. restaurant to get a drink.  A large and impromptu memorial had sprung up where the last victim was murdered, notes and posters and flowers.   The posters said, We love you, John.  I looked on from a distance, thinking, Really?  On the door to Carl’s there was a poster for a community walk on Saturday to raise money for John Berry’s burial.   The man had a name.  People cared.  Thursday, I took a run along the trail behind the park.  Tucked among some pine trees was another small memorial.  Pinned to a tree was a letter that read:

Dear John,

This is the spot where I met you six years ago.  I never knew then how you would affect my life now.  I enjoyed our talks along the riverbed.  I’m so glad you met my family and that my kids got to know you.  I will remember our last hug on January 5, 2012.  I will never forget you and I miss you deeply.  May God hold you close in His arms.  This community has lost a beautiful soul that lived amongst us.  I bet your view of the sunrises and sunsets are beautiful.  I’m glad we have a new angel that we met on earth first.

Love and friendship,
Krista, Todd, Alex, and Christopher

There were flowers, cards and candles around the letter.  There was also a picture of John Berry.   He had a face.  He was a man I’d seen many times, navigating the park paths with his bicycle, his belongings piled on the back.  Frequently, he was talking to other park people.  I once said, Hello.   There are many times I look at our species and wonder what God was thinking.  But Thursday, I cried a little, touched that people like Krista, Todd, Alex and Christopher took the time to get to know John Berry and give him a face.  I’m not naive … I know that every homeless man isn’t a John Berry.  The pictures of the other three men murdered are, in fact, pretty scary.   I just hope next time I pass a homeless man on the trail, I’ll take time to look him in the eye.  Because it must be hard to go through your days Faceless.

That’s not what today’s Post it about.   Well, it is about Posts but a different kind of Pages.  This shouldn’t surprise you if you’ve been coming around for a while.  Older Eyes is fond of leading you down one alley then, just when you think you know where you’re going, making a quick turn into another subject.  No, I don’t know why I do this.  At any rate, what I want to talk about today is Morning Pages … the two to three pages of handwritten, stream of consciousness prose recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way … and how a year of posting daily has affected them.  I’ve been doing Morning Pages most mornings for almost 18 years.   For me, the process of slowing down whatever is swirling in my head by writing it down has been invaluable in the process of knowing and understanding myself, as well as crucial in doing the inventory required by the Fourth Step.  Writing brings out things I might not otherwise have seen or chosen not to see.  But beyond the self-help aspects of Morning Pages, the process has done wonders for my ability to write freely about whatever topic I choose, which in turn has turned me into a prolific blogger.

It appears, however, that the process of posting regularly is not returning the favor … because as I have become more attuned to the structured writing of Posts on a particular topic, it’s taken longer and longer to complete my Morning Pages, sometimes to the point that I just say, To Hell with it!   Other times, I find myself drafting a Post in my Morning Pages.  The problem isn’t having a topic … after all, Julia says the Morning Pages can be on any topic.  It’s the planning and the pace that I worry about … over the years, when I’ve been slow or reluctant during my Morning Pages, I’ve assumed that there’s some issue I’m avoiding.   You don’t suppose that my self-improvement is complete, that I’m a finished product, do you?  Nah.  So what’s the deal?  Maybe it will turn up in my Morning Pages … if I get back to doing them.

The year before Reed was born, we spent a long weekend in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  In searching for entertainment for Saturday night, I found a group named Leahy performing at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.  I’d never heard of the group, so I navigated to their website to find that Leahy is a Canadian folk group made up entirely of family members from Lakefield, Ontario.   The eight member band features fiddle-based music that ranges from traditional jigs and reels to their own folk-rock compositions.  All the members play multiple instruments and all step dance as part of their act.   We discovered before the show that Leahy had a large following of people who had seen them before and traveled a long way to see them again in Santa Fe.  It was simply one of the most enjoyable concerts we’d ever attended, made better by the fact that it was a complete surprise.  Since then, we took my daughter and her husband to see them in Chandler, AZ.

Perhaps their signature piece is The Call to the Dance, which features lead fiddle, Donnell Leahy and ends with the entire family step dancing.  This is from a concert in Gatineau, Quebec.  You can find The Call to the Dance on their album Leahy.

My favorite is a song called Moment which is about living all of life, moment by moment … the way I wish I could live.  The lead vocal is by Erin Leahy.  I’ve uploaded the recorded version from the album Lakefield because there wasn’t a high-quality version online.

If you ever get a chance to see Leahy in concert, don’t miss them.  You can find information on the group and their tour schedule here.

If you asked our daughter about our biggest argument, she’d probably shake her head and tell you it was about a desk chair.  Yes, a desk chair.   For many years we had a maple roll top desk in our study with a matching maple chair, an unpadded maple chair that was fine for occasional desk work but uncomfortable for long term sitting.  When I started to work at home, I decided I needed padded office chair and headed to the Orange County Marketplace (which is an upscale swap meet) to find one.  The Marketplace is spread over the many acres of the OC Fairgrounds and I wandered the aisles looking for a chair retailer.  Among the rows of black chairs, I found a forest green one with tiny orange flecks that I thought would look good with the light orange walls of the study.   I bought the chair, set it up by the desk then called Muri to show her my find.  The look on her face was not one of joy.  The conversation that ensued was something like this (try to imagine increasing volume and one daughter listening in wide-eyed from the other room):

Bud: Don’t you like it?
Muri: No!  Do you?
Bud: Yes!  I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t like it.
Muri: It doesn’t go with the room.
Bud:  Sure it does.
Muri: The chair’s green and orange and the walls are salmon.  It doesn’t match.
Bud:  It does.  The walls are orange.  You’ve never been good with colors.  And I like it.
Muri:  It looks awful.  I won’t have it in here.
Bud:  I like it.  I’m keeping it.
Muri:  No, you’re not!
Bud: What are you going to do, make me take it back?
Muri:  No.  But if you keep it, I’m going to keep the door to the study closed all the time.
Bud:  Then I’ll open it.  It’s my house, too!
Muri: It may be your house but I won’t have our friends looking at that chair in there.
Bud: My friends will like it!

At this point, Muri stormed out of the room.  I knew, we were done talking about the freaking chair.  I also knew that once I calmed down, the chair had to go back for the sake of domestic tranquility.   I loaded it into my car, drove back to the Marketplace.  I was carrying the chair on my shoulders as I walked back to the retailer when the salesman I’d dealt with spotted me coming from about a half block away and shouted, What’s the matter?  Wife wouldn’t let you keep it?  For about thirty seconds, I felt like the biggest wimp in the world, but then I got to go home and laugh about it with the woman I love.

Looking back, it’s still funny.  I’d bet that Muri would still say the chair didn’t match and I know I’d tell you it did.  But I don’t think either one of us could say what set us off that Saturday morning.

Have you ever had a huge argument over something so unimportant?

P.S. – A tip of Older Eyes’ hat to Meleah for her post on her new green desk chair.  She got to keep hers.