Good news from the doctor came as a fairly big surprise

Short takes from a journey through a disorganized mind:

I may not be the worst person in the world at taking care of his own health, but Lord, I'm not good.

Three months ago, my doctor told me that, among other physical problems, my blood sugar levels were such that I had Type Two diabetes. He told me I needed to take medicine, watch what I ate and take my blood sugar measurement every day.

Uh oh ...

What?

Whenever a doctor gives you a list of things to do, you never seem to manage to do them all.

Well, I took the medicine very faithfully, and I did manage to cut back on the amount of sugar I was ingesting.

But ...

But I had troubling checking my blood sugar. I tried several times and got error messages and ...

... and then you just stopped trying.

You know me so well.

Tough choices

Well, I ought to. I've been sitting on your left shoulder for years.

OK, I stopped trying to check the level and just tried to do the right thing. I had my three-month followup today and they checked the numbers.

I was concerned that maybe I hadn't been doing that well, but I got a very pleasant surprise.

I'm not sure exactly what the measurement was called, but the deal was that it was a three-month average. A number below 5.6 would mean no diabetes at all and a number above 6.4 would mean diabetes. A number in between would be considered pre-diabetic.

I don't know what my number was three months ago, except that it was obviously higher than 6.4.

And today?

Today it was 5.9.

I'm proud of you, Lawrence.

Uh, it's Michael.

Whatever.

***

Sometimes you just have to say "What the f**k."

My chances of ever getting a really good Babe Ruth ball that is certified and guaranteed to be a Ruth signature are pretty slim.

Guaranteed balls start at about $2,500 and go up and up. There's no way I'm going to spend anywhere near that kind of money on a ball. The most I ever spent -- about 15 years ago -- was $300 for my Joe DiMaggio, and I won't even pay that much for a ball anymore.

But when I saw this ball, with the crap beaten out of it, no certification and the suggestion that it might have been a home run ball, with a signature that looked pretty good, I bid $69.99 on it.

I'm either very lucky or not so lucky. Maybe I'm the guy who has a forged painting he thinks is real, but what the f**k. It's only $70 bucks and it's the only Babe Ruth I'm ever going to own.

***

I'm really glad to see people standing up for Pope Francis and his comments about trickle-down economics and Christianity. The Holy Father has been taking a beating from squawk radio hosts on the right, from non-Catholic idiots like Rush Limbaugh and Catholic idiots like Sean Hannity.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, also a Catholic, said the Pope obviously didn't understand true free-market capitalism.

"They’re not really afraid of 'pure Marxism,'" religious scholar and author Thomas Cahill said, quoting one of Limbaugh’s complaints. "They might be more afraid of 'pure Christianity,' which it sounds to me like what he’s spouting."

Cahill was appearing on Bill Moyers' show, "Moyers and Company."

"I've come to the conclusion that there are only two movements in the world," Cahill said. "One is kindness, and the other is cruelty. I don't think there's anything else, really."

***

Kind of glad to see Alabama lose its bowl game last night. Not that I've got so much against the Tide, but at least now we won't be hearing that 'Bama was actually the best team in the country and only missed out because of a fluke.