Heelys, mud, and clouds

With thanks to a colleague recently returned from a trip to Guam, the youngest is enjoying her Heelys.

All I know is that many stores in Wisconsin have signs that say, "No Heelys allowed." Seems like if wheels on the bottom of our feet was good idea, these signs would not be posted everywhere.

Of course out here there are no signs. This may be because on a campus such as the College of Micronesia-FSM there are mud paths. This is the path the students took in the rain to get to the A+ student services center in order to begin early registration for the spring 2010 term.

Wheels on one's soles are a non-issue in soft, wet, muddy clay. Administration says that there is a sidewalk in the facilities plan. Fortunately our students are rather accustomed to walking under the rain, on mud, in zoris, without getting the backs of the skirts all muddy. This is a true skill that I am still struggling to master - to not flip mud up my back side when walking on zori-suctioning mud.

As a result of the rain the temperatures plummeted under dark skies and snow fell on the distant Palikir mountains.

No, not snow, but rather a deck of clouds under other decks of clouds around four in the afternoon. The low white deck stretched across the northern horizon on campus.

At the local elementary school the sidewalks become so slick due to rain and cyanobacteria that the surface becomes effectively frictionless. The kids run and slide on the surface as if it were black ice. Given that, and all the rain, I remain skeptical that the Heelys will ever see much use as Heelys - they seem to be more of a southern California or Australian toy - but they sure made my youngest happy. She's been gliding all around our small home.