I was real happy to see Rosalie and Rosalind show up at Sunnydale. The Chinese shooting gallery was a whole mess of fun. And I was just happy to see my best friends again. Then I was overjoyed when they said they wanted to join my team. I remember Charles telling us that hugging fellow servicemen was not part of a normal welcoming ritual. Rosalind stuck her tongue out at him. He raised an eyebrow and walked away with a bemused smile. He knew I wanted them on my team. He knew they wanted to be on my team. He simply questioned whether or not that was a good idea. He was right to question it. I was right to want it. So were they. History would prove all of us right in the end.
Rosalie and Rosalind reeled themselves in at Sunnydale one day while we were building up for the Hyades Campaign, stringing a whole pack of Chinese starships and fighters behind them. The Chinese thought they could nail themselves an easy fighter shipment on the last leg of their journey. The girls had been trolling them all day, slipping around them again and again. The girls lost their transport and half their fighters doing the deed, but they kept baiting the Chinese closer in. And they sent word out ahead of them. We were waiting on the system periphery when those girls brought the bad guys straight into our waiting arms. Ever went ice fishing with hand grenades? It was kinda awesome like that.
I’ve had a CPAP for a while now, and since I got it I have had one provider. The primary provider of CPAP equipment (and other home medical devices) in a city with one of the largest medical communities on the planet. Well, my Obamacare plan forgot they existed this year, and delisted them as my in-network provider. Literally could not find them with a name, address, and directions. And yet I know people on the same insurance who have them as their provider. It really makes me look with kindness on my younger years when the government was blithely ignorant of her citizens, as long as we paid our taxes on time. It was certainly better than the way the modern government actively seeks to (censored) us in the (censored). Obamacare Strikes Again…
My Nike Air Pegasus are showing their age by starting to come apart at the seams. Literally. So I went to a nearby outlet mall and found a new pair of Air Pegasus in a Trail Style I don’t think existed when I last got new shoes seven years ago. Thicker and wider souls than my old ones, which make them more stable, and they fit my very wide and flat feet that only the Air Pegasus have ever fit in the past. Affording a premium shoe like this is something I have never been able to do though. So outlet stores and major clearance sales have always been my goto, which means I have worn a wide variety of looks that other people didn’t buy in the stores. You may imagine the oddities that have been on my feet. These are not bad.
The Space Force kept Rosalie and Rosalind busy in the years that followed, recruiting new spacers, troubleshooting problems, or just flying the flag for nervous planets to feel good about. Even back then, when an Ageless showed up to help stiffen a defense, the defense got real stiff in a hurry. Those girls were a force multiplier, and wherever they went, any bad guys who showed up ended up having a really bad day. They were a whirlwind, and nobody knew how to handle them. Even our own people couldn’t figure them out. They decided they’d done enough to prove their point in time, and they really wanted me on their team every bit as much as I wanted them on mine. The hook was in. It was the reeling in that was the tricky part, but we managed it in time.