Sunset journey

Missing my canoe...5 1/2" by 11" watercolor, 140 # d'Arches

Heading for shore at the end of day. 
The water is still, the birds roosting, the branches and leaves still without a breath of breeze. 
The brilliant, varied colors of a setting autumn sun. 
Alone in a canoe, the only sound the dip of the paddle and the faint, brief gurgle of the wake. 
Life.

clarkbattlehymn1

"It's just plumbing"--the heart of our engineering

"Daddy, it's just plumbing," said my daughter Dallas when I told her I was spending today at the Oklahoma Heart Hospital.
She's was not being flippant, but trying to reassure me, after we learned my heart  had dangerous levels of calcium deposit more than a month ago. And she is married to a doctor, is really level-headed, and offered other calming advice and comments. For plumbing as old as mine, some aging was expected, but it's held up well over the years.

This plumbing map caught and kept my attention

I'd gone in for one of those $50 calcium heart scans. Last one 10 years ago showed no problems. This one shook me, indicated serious plumbing problems...not critical, but certainly not to be discounted if you want the plumbing to work right. (Below 400 is acceptable--oops).
And in spite of my doctor and cardiologist saying on a scale of one to 10 I had nothing to be scared of, it was still disconcerting. Especially considering my family history--Dad died of a heart attack and my younger brother Jerry had a bypass about 10 years ago.
"You can't choose your parents," said my doctor with a laugh, noting that my "numbers"--cholesterol, triglycerides, etc. were good. BP is regulated, weight is under control, non-smoker, and I exercise (some). Susan's a good cook and we don't eat much fried or fatty foods.
But today was the visit to the "plumbers" --nuclear stress test and ultrasound, and then a visit with the OHHC's great staff and plumbing expert, the cardiologist.
I knew that a stint was possible, or more medication, or whatever, and dreaded the worst, naturally.
Most unnerving thing today was watching the ultrasound of my heart. I could see it beating away as the tech took photos on a fancy computer. And then from time to time, I could see the valves opening and shutting and hearing the blood gurgle through the arteries.
It's very humbling really, looking at that fist-sized thing pumping away, knowing that it is my life in front of me, still going after all these years.
I told the tech that I wished we had a backup. After all, we have two lungs, two eyes, two kidneys, two arms and hands and two legs and feet.
It seems like The Engineer forgot to put in a spare, so not taking care of or repairing this piece of equipment is very expensive if not fatal.
The lesson was apparent, and I came away determined to enjoy today, this minute.
Oh, the plumbing findings?
Better than I could have hoped for. No decrease of blood flow, no structural defects. The pump is working normally.   Come back in six months.
I left,  went and bought flowers for our dinner table. After a healthy meal tonight, I'll start more regular exercise tomorrow.
Tonight, I'll raise a thankful toast to the good plumbing, the plumbers, my family, and The Engineer.

Autumn arrives, from an autumn person

Autumn Sunset, Eastern Oklahoma--9 by 12 watercolor, 140# d'Arches

Autumn officially arrives with this week's equinox and our maple out front has a twinge of color on some leaves. The air is cooler, the sun almost due east and west at beginning and end of day.
I think I am an autumn person.
Without being morbid, I thought of that today scanning the obituaries, always looking at the birth dates and accomplishments of those people listed in the Sunday newspapers. 
Most of the people are in the autumn of their years and their birth dates are getting closer to mine. I realize autumn is a favorite season with me because of the beauty in the colors of the foliage and the filtered light of the shorter days.
 As I read those obituaries, I have come to know that they also grew more beautiful as the years went by. Many journeys, many miles, many lives, enriched as time goes by and this life fades, just as this year is fading. Neither is it sad. In fact, sadness comes when I read the notices of people much younger than I who have died of disease or other causes, not being able to reach the beauty of autumn.
So this is today's inspired watercolor...celebrating autumn, the season of beauty in nature and lives.

Old photos, article in a look at Albuqureque's past

We arrived in Albuquerque, N. M., in the summer of 1951, driven there from Fort Worth by our uncle Mike, since Dad had already taken a job as a technical artist at Sandia Corp. on Sandia Base.
While scrounging through a box of old photos and more, I can across this 1952 article and photos in the Sandia Bulletin, the base newspaper.
It tells the history of the base and includes some astounding photos of how remote the base was from Albuquerque just a two to three years before we arrived. Look at that bare mesa stretching to the Sandia Mountains. Now it's full of subdivisions, up to the mountain's very base.

20+ years ago, at the house on Sandia Base where we grew up, now gone

Sandia was at eastern the edge of the city when we came, but we never knew all this, and lived in base housing for several years. 
Reading the history, I found another interesting fact. The base was the after-WWII dumping ground of "war-weary" B-24 Liberator bombers and P-51 Mustang fighters, both planes that Dad had been a draftsman on when at North American  and Consolidated companies in Fort Worth during the war, when I and my brother Jerry was born.