cornerofmadness

Really tired at the moment. Decided to cut it for length I had a 330 mile round trip today to see a doctor about my hand (the original hand surgeon who treated me after my injury). It was a curious thing, this drive to about 40 miles or so south of Green Bay (and if I wasn’t packing I’d probably had spent the night and did some sight seeing). Now Mapquest and goole.maps rarely agree on the mileage and the time needed but they usually aren’t radically different. MQ said 3 hours taking me down 51 (which meant going many miles west to go east later) GM said nearly 4 hours going down 47. The locals in three Lakes said 2 ½ hours and go 45. I looked at the map and fused all three directions into one that made the most sense.

It worked. Got there 2 hours early (better that than late since it took me 3 months to get this appt.) I got to go to a section of WI I haven’t been in before and got to go near some interestingly named cities like Neopit, Mattoon and my favorite, Slab City (with a street named Old Dump road, combine that with the fact I had to go across the Embarrass River, I felt like I had driven into a Lemony Snicket book). I got to see the Stagger Inn, a bar made out of a converted church and the Northern Exposure Gentleman’s club which had about 10 foot high Buckeye the Badger head and hands looking over a fence (very menacing, glad my first view of this wasn’t at night) and it looked like part of the strip club was inside a giant ‘hollow’ log with a monstrous chipmunk on top. Oh, I wish I had brought my camera.

Since I got there early I went exploring, and found a mall just a few blocks away. Big deal right? Well when you live over an hour away from one it is. Ten minutes into it I remember that I hate shopping but what the hell. Now I get Coldwater Creek catalogues al the time, but didn’t realize that they had stores. Still too expensive but lovely and their sales clerks scared me, every one (all grey haired ladies) popped up to say ‘ Welcome to Coldwater Creek, we’re happy to have you.’ It was like being in Stepford.

The hand surgeon can’t figure out why my hand is still damaged and made me a little nervous that he was putting so much stock in how flexible the hand was and that the nerve conduction test from 5 years ago was normal. I think he thinks this is all in my head (though it didn’t stop him from suggesting again a dorsal compartment release where they go in a remove scar tissue). I declined that. I know that I’m not getting much from my work man’s comp injury though personally I would have liked a redo on the nerve conduction test since nerve damage is progressive but that didn’t happen. Basically it was a giant waste of time. Watch me get 100$ from the insurance company when all is said and done.

I decided to not putter around in Appleton for long (did hit media play. I remember them being slightly cheaper with their stuff. Apparently not any more) because there was supposed to be bad storms even if it was beautiful while I was out. By the time I got back to Rhinelander it did get black and now tornados have touched down where I was and several towns on the path have been pelted with huge hail so I’m just as glad I didn’t dawdle.