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isolaradiale · 5 years

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Welcome to SpiraleFES!

A word of warning first: this is not an event and does not count as event participation towards ranking up. This is merely a bunch of fun activities that persist throughout July if you’d like to use them for threads.

The city is decorated festively from top to bottom, each and every ward sporting streamers, festive music, and providing a number of fun events. These can be used for threads throughout July, and so we encourage you to make use of them for some interesting interaction ideas! The list of events is as follows:

FIBONACCI WARD

NO PLACE LIKE HOME DECOR Do you find yourself missing that touch of something from home you just can’t seem to find in the city, no matter how hard you look? Well, search no more! Around the parks in various levels of the ward are vendors from familiar places, toting those little somethings from where you came from. Finally, you can find some clothes and other household items that aren’t easily accessible here. And if you look hard enough, you may find one of your personal treasures and trinkets that didn’t travel with you--a music box, a locket, maybe a ring from a family member… Don’t worry, it’ll have your name on it. NOTE: Weapons and other combat items will not be for sale in any of the bazaars.

A ROARIN’ BOREALIS SKATING RINK From the city streets, it looks like a bright ribbon of rainbow light, not unlike the famed Northern Lights. But ride the platform up to the top and see that the shimmering lights are actually a massive skating rink, with a figure 8 loop around the upper tiers of Fibonacci City. You can bring your own skates, or visit the kiosk to rent some LiteSkates--which leave a four-foot trail of light behind you in the color of your choice. There are guard rails around the arena, but even the clumsiest of skaters will be alright. After all, if you fall off the arena, a drone will pick you up and put you back on the ring. NOTE: Available during nighttime only.

ANDROID HELL … or the Ofiuco Rave, by any other name. A series of Radiocats seem to have flocked up to the lower floors of Level 3, and any discrimination towards those who seem like they may not belong has been, luckily (though no doubt only temporarily) shoved aside. Is it the Radiocats that set up the series of bright neon, backlit raves that have crowded varying floors on this level? … who knows. What everyone does know is that they’re certainly jamming out to some, as they say, “sick beats”, and large crowds have been drawn to the fluorescent party. It may be hard to move from place to place, but with the technology here being what it is, if you can see through the strobe for long enough, you’re bound to enjoy yourself! Ofiuco certainly is. NOTE: Ofiuco is immune to all attacks, charms, and other phenomena

CRAFT PUNK Outside of Fibonacci’s towering skyscrapers, nestled in the resident district, is an event with tinkerers in mind. Blending with the steampunk atmosphere is a foundry where your muse can learn the arts of robotics and machines. Classes range from building your own remote-control cars to making toys and household appliances (you know, like those little circular vacuum cleaners? Or a Super Toaster?) For those of you who are particularly adept in the art of machinery, you can enter the Scrap Battle Showdown--a competition to make a battle robot no bigger than a 3ft cube using only the supplies available in the foundry. If you’re caught using any materials from home, you’ll be kicked out!

COTES WARD

FOXKIND MUSIC FESTIVAL Within the confines of the Fox Village of all places, a month long celebration of music will be held. Many stages are set up and all genres of music are welcome. Whether you wish to perform or observe, you don’t want to miss this!

FISHING ON THE LAKE OF THE KOI The Lake of the Koi has been temporarily cleaned up by the kappa that live nearby in hopes of raking in a profit during SpiraleFES. They guarantee the more violent denizens of the lake will be kept at bay as otherworlders and NPCs use the body of water for fishing for a small fee of course. Just make sure you throw back what you catch, and make sure you aren’t the catch yourself!

SEED-GROWING CEREMONY The giant seed within the grounds of the Castle of the Koi has been seen stirring since the events of the Fantasia War. To those ends, the locals have been having regular traditional ceremonies to promote growth in the seed. Come dressed up in personal, formal wear and partake in the ceremony by dumping some of the water from the surrounding lake at the base of the seed.

CANDLE LIGHTING FOR THE LOST While the Lake of the Koi will be used for fishing during the day, during the night you can visit and purchase a candle and tiny raft. Placing this raft on the lake while considering well wishes for a resident of the city has since left is thought to bring them good fortune... wherever they are.

GOLDEN WARD

REFRESHING FRUITS A boon of the token fruits of summer. At sunset, the beach’s parking lot transforms into a cute little market selling and showcasing everything melon! Vendors selling melon-themed snacks and drinks ranging from fun to wacky, melon carving contests, melon-themed clothes and other commercial goods, and lots of activities and games... And melon plants, of course! There's bound to be something for everyone.

NOBODY’S BORED! WALK The Boardwalk is offering free admission for the duration of SpiraleFES! Not only that, but it’s open until midnight instead of closing solely at nightfall, and at 10pm each Sunday there’s a fireworks display. With a variety of little games and activities with fun prizes to be won, there’s a guarantee you definitely won’t be running out of things to do any time soon! Drop by at 6pm any night for a free barbecue.

CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL A cruise ship has docked, decked out in festive banners and balloons for the festivities. Open Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with free admission and free souvenirs, there’s a different themed activity on each of those nights! Monday night sports access to the ship’s nightclub, Wednesday sports a murder mystery starting at 8pm, and Friday sports a series of different escape rooms once the sun sets! The cruise ship may or may not be decked out solely in a variety of golden decorations, however.

THE CHILLIN’ VILLAIN A nightclub and lounge has mysteriously popped up on the border of the shadier part of Golden, and goodie two-shoes need not walk through its doors. With a temporary in-house ceasefire, all sorts of villains and antagonists are welcome to share a drink, a dance, and tell of the heists and plots they've devised. And if you'd rather keep your identity hidden, masks will be provided to you at a cost (it's a villain's lounge, not a charity!). NOTE: The ceasefire is mandatory, and all weapons and powers are deactivated upon entering the building

ARCHIMEDES WARD

ARTE FESTE (MULTIFACETED) All creative minds are welcome to join this massive booth dedicated to arts and crafts. All sorts of classes will be held over the span of the month--from common forms of painting and pottery to the unique art forms of metalworking and glassblowing. Whatever you create in the booth can be taken home, given to a loved one, or sold at the vendor’s tent. Any necessary supplies will be rented to you, but if you break it, you buy it. If performance arts are more your thing, stop by for any of the open mic sessions held at Calliope Theater. NPCs will be hosting plays and short skits that you may be dragged into as an unfortunate audience member, but citizens of Spirale are encouraged to take the stage and wow the crowd with words! Comedy sketches, poetry, and any other magnificent talents of yours are welcome at the stage! Please pay no attention to the guy selling tomatoes to throw. He doesn’t work for us. We don’t know where he came from.

TOO POOL FOR SCHOOL The Water of Styx, while always open to the public, has been decorated much like the rest of the wards. An assortment of pool toys and games have been set up and laid out for all to use as they see fit, including but not limited to some of the largest pool noodles you’ll ever see, a variety of pool floats in all shapes and sizes, and a volleyball net set up toward one end of the pool for all to enjoy a game. Refreshments and snacks provided! Some of the smaller pools around the ward have similarly been decked out in a multitude of fun pool supplies, but not nearly to the extent as the Water of Styx.

FLASH FASHION (THE DEPARTMENT WOULDN’T LET US NAME IT “FLASHION”) Highlighting the summer fashion scene is this joint-event, perfect for participants of all levels of experience. Those skilled in the art of the cloth can showcase their designs both on mannequins or in person in the display booth. There are all sorts of categories to enter your pieces into, so don’t be shy to show what you’re made of! Those that have an eye for photography are encouraged to come and snap some photos of the spectacle; the fashion, the models, the contestants--even the guests! The display booth has a wireless printer and a corkboard for pinning your snapshots to. For those of you who would rather keep things fun and casual, there’s a photo trail with plenty of fantastic views of the ward to take that sweet, sweet selfie in.

TASTE OF HOME Sometimes the best kind of cookin’ is home cookin’. That’s why for the entire month, Star Street has taken a turn for the familiar and has branched into cuisine not common to the island itself. There’s bound to be a booth on the street that makes something your muse used to chow down on from where they came from. It’s a great opportunity to have your friends come by for a home cooked meal… with no dishes to clean up!

#spiralefes

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jenroses · 5 years

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Cheap, low spoon cooking

My cooking tends to start with protein, and because of my food issues, that protein is generally meat, and if you argue with me about that, I’ll block you, because if you want to do a thread on low cost vegan cooking, go right ahead, you’ve got your own blog right there. Holler if you want more specific instructions for any of these, and let me know whether you just need a basic recipe or “how to for a complete noob to the kitchen” or anything in between.

1. Chicken

Chicken is at the top of the list for cheap and easy, because it can often be had for less than $1.50 per pound, and because many preparations of it can be done with less than 5 minutes of work (oven time not included.)

Basic: get whole chicken. Preheat oven to 450. Pull out giblets. Sprinkle salt on skin. Roast at 450 for 1 hour. Enjoy crispy skin, tender meat. Same method (shorter cooking time, about 45 minutes) works for bone-in skin-on thighs. With the whole chicken, you can usually make one bird into several meals, by using the meat for one meal, and making soup out of the bones and whatnot for the next meal. If you get skinless boneless thighs, they’ll usually be a little cheaper than skinless boneless breasts. Don’t roast them, cut them up, drench them in a marinade, and pan fry the pieces. Serve with pasta or rice and stir fried veggies.

2. Pork

Pork tends to range in price from $2.50 per pound up to $8 per pound. I’m usually getting pork shoulder for about $3 per pound. Shoulder and “country style ribs” are incredibly cheap and can be pressure cooked (instant pot) or slow cooked into pulled pork with seasonings, or you can get slightly fancier, make a marinade of coconut aminos and orange juice (or apple juice and apple cider vinegar, or rice wine vinegar, mirin, soy sauce, whatever, just make sure there’s some salt and some acid and some sweetness in the marinade to help tenderize the meat), and cut the shoulder roast into 3/4 inch thick steaks, cutting across the grain, then put in a bag or bowl with the marinade overnight. We add onions and garlic and shallots to the marinade because I can digestively tolerate them only if they’ve been soaking in acid of some sort for a while. My favorite is to marinade in orange juice, coconut aminos, chilis, onion, garlic, etc. overnight, then pan fry the steaks, turning often, until golden brown. The resulting pork shoulder steaks get cut into strips and served a variety of ways--tacos, sandwiches, lettuce wraps, whatever. We usually use about 8 oz per person if there’s no fancy sandwich toppings, and 6 oz per person or less if making wraps or tacos. I have to have a little more energy for this method, and will often have someone else prep the aromatics.

3. Eggs Even farm eggs, if you live anywhere near a rural area, can be had for less than 50 cents an egg, and regular conventional eggs have been $2 per dozen or less basically as long as I’ve been alive. Basic egg recipes can go from fridge to table in about 5 minutes. I usually get eggs from a friend whose neighbors have backyard chickens, for about $4 per dozen. A good nonstick egg pan + eggs is a fast way to get protein into you without spending all your energy doing it. Over easy, scrambled, omelet, or my kid’s favorite, egg in the hole... all cheap and incredibly fast.

4. Beef Most beef is not cheap, and has been getting steadily more expensive for years. That said, if you understand how to cook various less fancy cuts, and shop at a local butcher, chances are you can get your meat for far less than a typical grocery store. I rarely go for things like ribeye or filet. We’re all about the round roast, chuck roast and flat iron here. Also like the shank. I rarely spend more than $7 per pound on beef, usually closer to $6. But again, we’re shopping at a local butcher who sources meat locally and does all breakdown themselves. Tricks: Look for a whole flat iron and ask the butcher to cut it. The method I ask for is “Please cut it off the silverskin and then into 6 oz portions.” This eliminates most of the gristle layer, leaving incredibly tender meat with a ton of flavor. The flat iron is from the chuck, but is a specific muscle that doesn’t get used a lot, so it’s very tender. Round roast, tip roast... these can be just salted and roasted very slowly (like, 200 F) if you have a meat thermometer with a probe that can stay in the meat, so that you roast it at very low temp until it comes up to about 110-120 degrees, then you take it out, turn the oven up to like 450, put a rub on the meat, and blast it at high heat until the probe is at 140. Then you let it rest for a while and come up a few more degrees, and what you get is a roast with a crust, as tender as the cut is likely to get while staying pink, which, cut thin, will be fantastic roast beef. If you don’t have a fancy thermometer, we usually start it high, then turn it down without opening the oven and let it go for an hour or so before checking with a cheap thermometer. But you can also cut into smaller pieces, marinade, and stir fry. You can ask the butcher to cut your roast into chunks for stir fry, if you aren’t up to the cutting.

Chuck, shank, and other tough cuts can be pressure cooked into super tender pot roast very quickly. Wine, mushrooms... We use cheap sulfite-free wine and whatever mushrooms are most affordable for this.

5. Lamb Lamb can be pricey, but we get a boneless leg roast (grass fed) at Costco for about $6 per pound, which is one of the best prices out there for grass fed meat. We use the roast in one of two ways: We either roast it low and slow like beef, serving it rare, or we cube it and pressure cook it with savory liquids and then serve it with coconut milk and curry paste over rice. So good. 6. Duck Our local Asian markets usually have whole duck for $3.50-ish per pound. It’s outrageously expensive literally anywhere else. Duck doesn’t cook like chicken, exactly... you must score the fat if you want it crispy, which means poking the fat without poking the meat. We roast at high temp, flipping as needed, to get a very crisp duck without drying out the breast. SAVE the drippings and use them in soup, or to cook eggs or potatoes in. Duck fat is like gold. So much flavor. 1 duck feeds 3 of us an indulgent amount of duck. Cooking gadgets for reducing the amount of physical energy you need to cook things: I never, ever use slow cookers because even used properly they seem to create less flavor than the pressure cooker methods. Pressure cookers are like slow cookers for procrastinators. Things that normally would take all day take an hour. Things that would take a couple of hours will take 30 minutes. The amount of money you can save in cooking beans alone vs. canned will pay for it. Pressure cooker is often the difference between me making homemade stock and throwing the carcass away. They’re also about as efficient at transferring heat into meat as any form of cooking you can get, so the energy savings are not irrelevant. Instant Pot is $70-ish at Costco right now, I’m just saying. An oven is helpful, but if you don’t have a full sized oven or can’t bend that way, a toaster oven can do a LOT. If you can get one that is large enough to cook a chicken in, you don’t need a larger oven if you aren’t doing large scale cooking. If you have a child who wants to learn to cook, a cheap toaster oven costs about the same as an EZ bake, but is an actual real kitchen device which can do real cooking. Spend a little more and get one with air circulation and a little more interior space if you can afford the counter space and the money. I know people like air fryers, I’ve not seen the point. Very few things an air fryer can do that a convection toaster oven can’t, and the form factor is better for the toaster oven for cooking a reasonable amount of tater tots. (priorities!)

Food processor: If you find chopping things a barrier, food processors can slice and grate very quickly, and rinse off nicely without a lot of elbow grease. I don’t usually bother, but I have minions who will do chop prep for me. If you don’t, even a small food processor will be less taxing on sore joints than most chopping. If you want to make pastry, a food processor is a must if you have energy issues.

Knives and a means to sharpen them: dull knives make cooking incredibly exhausting and tedious. Sharp knives make it all work so much better. The base price of the knife is less important than the condition you keep it in, as youtube will be happy to show you in a variety of mesmerizing videos.

Meat thermometer: Sort by reviews, ignore any where the reviews are suspicious. My strong preference is for digital quick-read ($10ish) OR probe-style leave-in. ($20-ish) You want this for food safety AND so that you can avoid overcooking roasts.

Cutting board: ideal is something with a groove (prevents juices from flooding the counter and contaminating everything) that runs around the edge. Cheap plastic boards can be convenient, I guess, but are harder to get reliably clean than wood, which tends to kill off germs. My favorites are bamboo. Not terribly spendy, super pretty, work very well.

The pans I use: 9x13 pyrex baking dish for most of our chicken stuff dark enamel roaster (not huge unless you’re going to do turkeys) for beef roasts (very cheap) large baking trays lined with silpats (both bought at costco, idek, they’re ideal for tater tots and such and don’t get problems with sticking and are easy to clean) Nonstick PFOA-free egg pan, sautee pan and 11 inch griddle. I think I spent $22 at Target on three egg-type pans of different sizes? Not particularly spendy, but you do need to replace them every 5 years or so. variety of saucepans and pots in stainless (I have cuisnart and Kirkland and they’re fine and last kind of forever barring disasters and sometimes even then. Can be bought second hand.) We use a lot of pyrex stuff because it’s convenient for leftovers and mise en place. If you have someone helping with chop prep, little dishes full of prepped things make the cooking go so much easier. But you can do that in regular dishes too, we’re just fancy that way (and I stg the pyrex breeds in the cupboard.)

I’ll talk starches if people want.

#Mine

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chazigill · 3 years

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The Benefits Of Using Neon Signs For Your Business

There are numerous benefits to using neon signs. Signs made of neon are a striking and uplifting element of art. Neon can have an impact on people that is undeniable, and that may be why more and more businesses owners are turning to neon as a sign alternative. Since neon was first introduced to the market in the 1950s and 1960s, neon signs have advanced to be among the top lighting options in terms of affordability and return of investment. Neon signage can also provide a unique marketing option for many small businesses.

Signs made of neon have a variety of benefits, but here are the top reasons to consider neon signs for your business:

Neon is energy efficient.

Everyone should make the switch to more efficient energy sources, given the increased emphasis on conservation of the environment and the use of energy. You don't need to sacrifice your beautiful sign to be more environmentally friendly. Neon is between 50 and 60 percent more energy efficient than contemporary signs, with the sole exception for LED modules. Even a sign that is efficient and lit with incandescent bulbs will still consume twice as much electricity and still will not be as effective at getting your business the attention it deserves. You will get more info about LED sign by browsing https://neondirect.co/ website.

Additionally, because neon does not make use of filaments as do other kinds of bulbs, the electrodes are cool to the contact. This makes it safer for indoor signage in bars, restaurants and offices. Also, it reduces power consumption. Furthermore, the standard neon sign is priced at around 20 cents to leave on for 24 hours.

Neon Signs Are Durable

Neon signs that are well built by skilled craftsmen is going to last for many years. Compare this to the life span of the typical lightbulb that is between 6 and 12 months. The lifespan of a neon light is approximately 10 years. If they do not last the reason is usually issues with wiring or the deterioration of the light bulb.

If you are able to perform regular maintenance, your neon sign will be in service for many years.

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Neon Is Versatile

The endless possibilities of how neon can be utilized is another reason it's so sought-after. This versatility is the main reason why neon is utilized in areas with a high density of people such as Tokyo, Hong Kong, and New York City. Neon comes in over 100 colors and the way that the glass tubing is made allows for a design that is unlimited. Glassblowers who are professional, skilled craftsmen who bend glass into a variety of forms, can be hired to create beautiful forms. Neon can do almost all you'd like to create outdoor or indoor signage.

Neon Signage is Environmentally Friendly

Neon light bulbs, as I previously mentioned, are extremely efficient in terms of energy consumption. In addition, they are an eco-friendly option that is more sustainable for the natural environment. Neon signs do not consume much energy. Actually, a toaster can consume 100 times more power for a single use than a neon sign will in 24 hours. Also, if you're looking to cut down on the carbon footprint of your business and carbon footprint, neon signs are the best option. Neon signs also last for at least a decade so they generate less waste.

Neon Signs Look Amazing

Neon signs can make the most mundane interiors look fancier and more upscale. You can add a lot of creativity to any space. The limitless design options mean you can select and pick colors that complement your brand's image and identity, accent the interior or exterior architecture of your office or store, or add lighting and artwork at the same time.

You can also utilize that aesthetic to improve your branding. Make your office more inviting with motivating signage that points at the mission of your company. Illuminate your logo. Display your logos over the heads of your customers. These images will be more quickly recognized by people who see them regularly. It's the cheapest marketing campaign in which you'll ever put your money.

Neon is very visible and brightens the night

The use of neon is a fantastic way to boost the visibility of brands and increase brand awareness for businesses. The luminosity of neon is the reason it's not just pleasing to the eye , but also noticeable in all kinds of weather, including fog and darkness. A neon sign can aid in making your business stand out in any weather conditions. A neon sign is an excellent option to get your business noticed.

Furthermore, if you have longer hours, a 24-hour company, or simply want to market your location to passers-by the use of neon is beneficial. It is also possible to illuminate other types of signage but neon is more affordable during nighttime hours due to its simplicity of installation and simple maintenance.

Neon Signs Are Masterpieces

Neon signs can completely transform your storefront's interior or exterior. There are numerous advantages for neon signs. The beautiful signs can be anything you desire and are available in a wide range of colors. In addition, neon signs are a low-cost option with a truly positive effect.

Are you looking to enhance the atmosphere and appearance of your business? Are you having questions about neon signs that we haven't answered here? To receive more information, please fill out the contact form. We are looking forward to hearing from you!

#Neon Signs

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livingcorner · 3 years

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How to Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets

If you’ve noticed the cost of new appliances, countertops, and cabinets, it’s no surprise that renovating a kitchen is one of the most expensive remodeling projects. While few homeowners find ways to boost the look of a dated refrigerator or tired granite, transforming a kitchen by freshening the cabinets that make up most of the room’s visual space is entirely within reach. But there’s more to the job than buying a gallon of your favorite color.

Read our step-by-step instructions on how to get the job done right.

You're reading: How to Paint Your Kitchen Cabinets

How Much Does it Cost to Paint Kitchen Cabinets?

Renovating a kitchen is one of the most expensive remodeling projects that you can take on, and replacing the cabinets can account for nearly 40 percent of that cost.

Cabinets for a 10-by 12-foot kitchen can easily top $5,000—and your new cabinets may actually be of lower quality than the ones you’re replacing. On the other hand, a few fresh coats of paint can go a long way toward transforming your existing cabinets for a fraction of that price. In fact, the cost of painting should be no more than about $200, plus a weekend or two of your time.

Should I Paint My Cabinets?

Before you head out to the paint store, however, examine your cabinets to see if they can be resuscitated in the first place. Even the highest-quality paint job can’t revive cheap cabinets that have grown frail with age. Thin veneers peel or delaminate, particleboard cabinet bottoms or shelves sag or break, and hanging rails come loose. If these are the issues you’re dealing with, you’d actually be better off replacing your kitchen cabinets.

Assuming that everything is still in fine shape and good working order, let’s examine some of the questions you’ll need to address before you start repainting your kitchen cabinets.

What Type of Paint Do I Need for Cabinets?

Oil or latex?

Latex paints have been improving steadily, leading some pros to give up oil-based paints entirely. Because they dry quickly and clean up with water, latex paints are more user-friendly than oil-based paints. But many pros still favor oil-based topcoats, arguing that they form a harder, more durable paint film and level out to a smoother finished surface. Latex paints also take longer (up to three weeks) than oil-based paints to fully cure. In the meantime, they’re susceptible to damage.

Read more: 4 Benefits of Having a Pot Filler in Your Kitchen

Bottom line: Either oil or latex will provide a good finish. If you do use a latex paint, make sure it’s a 100 percent acrylic formulation, which offers greater durability and adhesion than vinyl acrylic paints.

Brush or Spray Paint?

A sprayed-on finish is the smoothest option, but there’s a learning curve for doing it properly. You’ll also likely need to rent the spray equipment, which drives up your costs, and you’ll have to mask off all the areas in the kitchen that could accidentally get sprayed, including countertops, cabinet interiors, and appliances, which is a time-consuming process.

For these reasons, we recommend you opt for using high-quality brushes instead. Invest in a good, 3- to 4-inch-wide square brush, whose straight ends will make short work of large, flat panels, as well as an angled brush in the 2½- or 3-inch-wide range, which will help you get paint into the corners of doors with molding and can coat door frames in one pass. Latex paint should be applied with a synthetic bristle brush, which doesn’t absorb water; oil-based paint should be applied with a natural-bristle brush.

Can you just paint over cabinets or should you strip them?

When the existing finish is a clear coat, the best course of action is to strip the finish down to the bare wood before painting. This eliminates a potential adhesion problem between the old finish and the new paint.

But while stripping may be the ideal for purists, it’s not always practical or absolutely necessary. A thorough cleaning followed by light sanding should be enough to prepare the surface for new paint.

Regular or faux finish?

If you’re open to spicing up your kitchen’s look, incorporating a faux finish can transform its style into shabby chic, rustic, provincial, or modern. Crackling glaze, which is available at paint stores, can, with very little effort, give your cabinets a weathered look. Just apply the glaze over a dry base coat, brushing in only one direction (thick for large cracks, thin for fine cracks), and let it dry. Finish with a flat topcoat of the base color brushed on perpendicular to the glaze. The paint will start to form cracks as it dries, a process that takes about an hour.

Another rustic style is the distressed look, which doesn’t require a special paint. This finish is made up of layered colors and spattered dark paint. When the paint is dry, to reveal the colors underneath, distress the finish by hitting it with a chain and lightly sanding in the spots where the cabinets get the most use.

Similarly, the antiqued, slowly aged look can be achieved with some paint magic. Simply dip the tip of a paintbrush in a color lighter than the cabinets and dab the excess onto a cloth until the brush is almost dry, then lightly graze the surface of the detail trim, corners, and seams.

On the other end of the spectrum is a high-gloss finish, which will transform your kitchen into a polished, modern space. To shine up your cabinets, paint a high-gloss clear acrylic varnish over your final coat. This technique will add depth to the color and cover the surface of your kitchen with a glassy sheen.

Paint Brushes and Materials You’ll Need

Paint – Look for a paint designed for trim, often labeled enamel. The higher the sheen, the more durable the finish—high gloss will stand up better than satin.

Roller – Use a 4- or 6-inch foam roller to cover the sides of cabinets and their face frames.

Square Brush – The straight end of a 3- to 4-inch-wide brush makes short work of large, flat panels.

Angled Brush – A synthetic angled brush in the 2½- or 3-inch-wide range helps you get paint into corners of doors with molding, and can coat door frames in one pass.

HVLP Sprayer – Not into the hand-brushed look? Spraying on a topcoat is the easiest way to get a smooth, factory-like finish. High volume/low-pressure sprayers are versatile enough to spray cabinets, fence panels, or exterior trim.

What To Do Before You Start

Consider The Cost and Get a New Kitchen on a Budget

Brown Bird Design

Cabinets can account for nearly 40 percent of a kitchen’s cost. Here’s how three common cabinet upgrades stack up in an average 10-by-10-foot kitchen.

Repainting would cost less than $200. Adding new drawers and doors runs about $1,300, while upgrading to ready-to-assemble cabinets starts at about $1,630.

Read more: Laminate Vs. Two Pack – An in-depth comparison – DIAMOND INTERIORS

Set up a Temporary Kitchen

Painting your cabinets means taking a vital room completely off-line.

Plan ahead: Set up a kitchen in a nearby room with a hot plate, a toaster oven, and a cooler to serve as a fridge during the project. Oh, and use paper plates.

Steps for Painting Cabinets

1. Prep the room

A successful paint job lies in diligent prep work, and the first few steps are focused on prepping the room and cabinets for painting.

Start by emptying the cabinets, clearing off the counters, and removing any freestanding appliances.

Relocate tables and other furniture to another room.

Tape rosin paper over the countertops and flooring, and, to protect the rest of the house from dust and fumes, tape plastic sheeting over the backsplash, windows, fixed appliances, and interior doorways.

Mask off the wall around the cabinets.

Set up a worktable for painting doors, drawers, and shelves.

TIP: Set Up a DIY Paint Station

Brown Bird Design

This makeshift jig provides access to all sides of a cabinet door to reduce downtime during drying. Here’s how to set it up:

Span a pair of 2x4s at eye level between two ladders.

Screw eye hooks into one end of a 2×4, where doors will be painted, and at the other end, screw hooks into both 2x4s to hang painted doors from.

Add corresponding hooks to the top edges of upper cabinet doors and the bottoms of lower doors and drawers, where the holes left behind won’t be visible.

2. Remove the doors, drawers, and shelves

Illustration by Gregory Nemec

Back out the hinge screws from the cabinet frame and remove the doors.

Working from left to right, top to bottom, label each one with a numbered piece of tape. Also, number the edges of cabinet shelves and the bottoms of drawers.

Set aside the shelf-hanging hardware.

At your worktable, remove the pulls and hinges and save what’s being reused.

On the doors, transfer the number from the tape to the exposed wood under one hinge.

Cover it with fresh tape.

3. Clean all the surfaces

Use ordinary household cleaners to remove the grime from the face frames, doors, drawer fronts, and shelving. If ordinary cleaners aren’t effective, consider using a stronger cleaner like trisodium phosphate (TSP), which is sold at hardware and paint stores. Just make sure you follow the safety precautions on the container.

Once all the cabinet pieces are clean, rinse them thoroughly with water and let them dry.

4. Prep the boxes

Open the windows for ventilation and put on safety gear. Using an abrasive pad dipped in a liquid deglosser, scrub down all of the surfaces.

Hold a rag underneath to catch drips. Before the deglosser evaporates, quickly wipe away the residue with another clean, deglosser-dampened rag.

If you’re relocating the hardware, fill the old screw holes with a two-part polyester wood or autobody filler.

It sets in about 5 minutes, so mix only small batches. The filler shrinks a bit, so overfill the holes slightly.

As soon as it sets, remove the excess with a sharp paint scraper. If it hardens completely, sand it smooth.

Sand all the surfaces with the grain using 100-grit paper.

Vacuum the cabinets inside and out to make sure no bits of dust mar the finish, then rub them down with a tack cloth for extra measure.

5. Prime the cabinet boxes

Photo by Kolin Smith

Now it’s time for the primer. If the cabinets are heavily stained, use a stain-blocking primer, which dries quickly and seals knots and other surface defects that might bleed through the topcoats. In most situations, however, stain-blockers shouldn’t be necessary, and an oil-based or 100 percent acrylic latex primer will work just fine.

Starting at the top of the cabinet, brush on the primer across the grain, then “tip off”—pass the brush lightly over the wet finish in the direction of the grain. Always tip off in a single stroke from one end to the other.

Make sure to follow the underlying structure of the cabinet or door with the brush. Where a rail butts into a stile, for instance, paint the rail first, overlapping slightly onto the stile, then paint the stile before the overlap dries.

6. Sand, caulk, and fill

Photo by Kolin Smith

After the primer is dry, sand the flat surfaces with 220-grit paper.

Sand any profiled surfaces with a medium-grit sanding sponge. The wood should end up feeling glass-smooth.

Squeeze a thin bead of latex caulk into any open seams. (The hole in a caulk tube’s tip should be no bigger than the tip of a sharp pencil.)

Pull the tip as you go, then smooth the caulk with a damp finger. Fill any small dents, scratches, or dings with vinyl spackle, smoothed flat with a putty knife.

Once the spackle is dry (about 60 minutes), sand again with 220-grit paper, vacuum, and wipe with a tack cloth.

With a spray can of fast-drying oil-based primer, spot-prime the spackle and any spots where the sandpaper has “burned through” the primer.

Wait an hour, then sand the primer lightly with 280-grit paper.

Vacuum all the surfaces, and wipe them with a tack cloth.

7. Paint the cabinet boxes

Photo by Kolin Smith

You’re finally ready to paint! If you’re using roughly the same shade as the existing color, two coats ought to do the job. You might even get away with one. Painting over a dark finish with a light color is tougher and could require three coats. Break out a new brush for each coat.

Working from top to bottom, apply the paint to the cabinet exterior across the grain, then tip it off with the grain.

For the cabinet interior, apply the paint with a smooth-surface mini roller, which leaves a slightly bumpy, orange-peel texture.

Between coats, sand the surfaces lightly, making sure to clean up the debris afterwards.

8. Prep, prime, and paint the doors, drawers, and shelves

The strategy for prepping, priming, and painting doors, drawers, and shelves is the same as for the cabinets, except that all the work is done on a table to reduce the chance of drips, runs, and sags.

When painting paneled doors, start with the area around the panel.

Then, do the main field of the panel, and finish with the stiles and rails around the edges.

As you go along, wipe up any paint that ends up on adjacent dry surfaces to eliminate the chance of lap marks.

Tip: To speed up the drying time for doors, you can twist two screw hooks into holes drilled in an inconspicuous door edge (the lower edge for bottom cabinets, the upper edge for top cabinets). Paint the door’s outside face and let it dry for an hour while resting flat, then tilt the door up onto its hooks and put a drywall screw into an existing hardware hole. Hold the tilted door up by the screw and paint the door’s back side.

When you’re done painting, pick up the door by the screw and one hook and hang both hooks on a sturdy clothes hanger.

Suspend the door from a shower curtain rod or clothes rod until it dries.

9. Put back all the pieces

Photo by Kolin Smith

After the final coat is dry, replace the shelves.

Remove the tape over each door’s number, install the hinges and knob, and hang them in their original opening.

Replace the drawer pulls (or add new ones) and reinstall each drawer.

Recommended Tools:

Source: https://livingcorner.com.au Category: Kitchen

source https://livingcorner.com.au/how-to-paint-your-kitchen-cabinets/

#livingcornernews

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moonprincess92 · 6 years

Photo

Alliance Industries

Cassian starts his 8 week internship at Alliance Industries with a goat in an elevator…oh yeah, and a hot receptionist.

For @deadpanprincess Happy Valentine’s Day! MUCH LOVE <3

I.E. a ‘they all work in an office’ au (Read on AO3)

PART 1

He had to ride 12 floors in an elevator with a hot girl and a goat.

Sure, he had no idea what he was getting into with this internship, but truth be told he really wasn’t expecting the goat. He’d squeezed onto the elevator on the ground floor of the Yavin Building with what felt like a billion other people and while not exactly comfortable, he’d figured that he’d been doing ok. Maybe even fairly well, considering it was his first day of this internship and all. It was somewhere around floor five, however, when she walked on dragging said goat behind her and literally no one batted an eye. Cassian stared at the goat, then at his phone open on the last email he’d been sent from his future supervisor, and back at the goat again.

This hadn’t been on the website.

He decided not to concentrate on the goat that was currently trying to eat the hem of the girl’s pencil skirt and rather stare pointedly at the numbers on the elevator wall as they climbed. If it hadn’t been for the subtle side-eyes, he honestly would have questioned the goat’s existence entirely, considering the lack of attention it got. People slowly filtered out without a word, and the girl and goat thankfully got off at floor eight. Cassian himself exited on floor 12, breathing a sigh of relief upon finding the giant sign indicating that he’d found the offices of Alliance Industries… although it was rather short-lived. The reception appeared to be utterly abandoned. Cassian glanced around anxiously, but he was rather alone apart from some haphazard papers scattered behind the reception desk and what looked like a gnawed on stapler.

Shit.

The email had just said to ask at reception once he arrived and that their receptionist would show him through the offices until his supervisor arrived at ten. What the fuck was he supposed to do now?

He was just debating whether to email back or whether to try and find someone else, when he heard the elevator door open once again behind him. He turned to see the goat girl from before rushing out, her face flushed, hair coming out of its superb bun and swearing like a trucker.

“Fucking bollocking balls – I’m so sorry!” she called out. She dashed for the reception desk, not even taking the time to walk around, but instead catapulting herself over top of it. Sliding gracefully on her ass, she even managed to stick the landing in her high heels before turning and facing him. “We had a bit of an emergency – you must be the new intern!”

“Is the goat ok?” he asked, dumbly.

The woman, who was clearly the receptionist, blinked at him once before letting out a bark of laughter. “That goddamn fucking goat – it escaped from the insurance company on floor eight, we’ve been trying to catch it all morning. You saw?”

“I was in the elevator.”

“Jesus, I really am sorry – my name’s Jyn, I’m supposed to show you around,” she held out her hand over the desk and Cassian might have been a little blindsided, but at least had enough sense to shake it. She smiled at him, before hastily gathering up all the paperwork that had been scattered. She made to go and staple them all together, when of course she noticed the mangled stapler and cursed once more.

“I’m going to kill that goat.”

“It’s fine, I swear–” Cassian said, quickly.

He accepted his copy of the Alliance Industries Policies and Guidelines all in loose pages, although not without Jyn insisting that she at least find him a clip or something to keep it all together with. “Anyway, let me do my actual job and show you round,” she said, moving around the desk once more.

He was almost disappointed that she didn’t leap over it this time.

A few days later she was in the elevator again, only this time she was sans goat.

“Hey!” she said brightly upon seeing him.

“Oh, hey,” he said, talking awkwardly over the forced quiet that always accompanied every elevator journey. “no farm animals today?”

“You talk as if that was a regular occurrence.”

“When it’s the first time you walk in the building, can you blame me?”

“I swear, goats are not a usual thing at Alliance,” Jyn said. “But hey, I never caught up with you earlier, how’s your first week going with us so far?”

“It’s going…” Cassian racked his brain for words in English that would accurately describe the last few days he’d had. After the goat and his new supervisor Draven, he was starting to wonder if his university actually understood what kind of internship he had signed up for. “Is it always like this at Alliance?”

“Whatever it was that happened, probably,” Jyn answered with a slight smirk.

“They gave me my own office at least,” Cassian said. “Well – I say office – it’s just a spare cubicle they said I could have because the current employee is on leave until after I finish, but it’s nice to feel like I have a place here.”

“How long’s the internship?” she asked.

The tone was casual. Cassian couldn’t kid himself that there was anything more to it than that because flirting with the objectively hot receptionist was not exactly one of his tasks that would go towards his university credits. Still… he would be an idiot to not realise that with her ability to jump desks in tight skirts and heels, he wouldn’t exactly say no to flirting. It was fine. His heart was allowed to race a little imagining that she was asking because she wanted him to stick around.

“Eight weeks,” he answered.

“Sounds like ages, but that’ll go really quickly,” she said. He wanted to say more, except that was when the elevator stopped on their floor, and they clattered out along with several other people. He lagged near the reception desk as she walked behind it, booting up the main computer and opening the phone lines.

“Yeah, I guess it will. See you around?”

“Of course,” Jyn smiled at him from over the desk. “Have a good day.”

“You too.”

She was always there.

In the elevator, without fail, they somehow always managed to arrive at the same time, about ten minutes before eight. She would come over, pushing through the meagre space until she was at his side and would ask how his time with them was going. He was always brutally honest because he hadn’t been kidding when he’d wondered what he’d gotten himself into, and it seemed that if he wanted to survive this internship he needed someone like the Alliance Industries receptionist on his side.

The goat hadn’t even been the start of it. To be perfectly honest, Cassian wasn’t even sure any more about what the company actually did, which had to be saying something. From the initial application it had looked like a law firm, but the data he was analysing as his tasks covered everything from taxes to supply lists to transportation costs. One day there would be a meeting about the local market and the next, a photoshoot for the latest issue of Vogue, complete with full make-up crew, wardrobe and background models that would take over the entire office bullpen with their smoke machine and dramatic headpieces until eventually, several secretaries would manage to rope them into the right part of the building. Nothing about the company seemed to make sense, and every time he asked for clarification, the only answer he could ever get was along the lines of,

“I don’t know. Something to do with computers?” Jyn had told him quizzically once.

“You’ve worked here how long and you still don’t know what your company actually does?”

“I’m the receptionist! I schedule shit and take angry calls from clients, you think I know what kind of operation the CEO is running? This could be a black-market trade centre for all I know.”

(Cassian hoped to god he wouldn’t have to explain how he’d interned for two months with a black-market trade to his college professors).

Either way, the company kind of terrified him so much that it took an entire week just to get up enough courage to use the break room.

Look, on his first say he had set one foot inside the room only to find everyone practically screaming as apparently, someone had accidentally set the toaster on fire. Rather than brave that, Cassian had promptly turned right back around and opted to eat his lunch at his desk. He might have just stayed there again if it weren’t for the fact that his lunch needed reheating today. Much to his relief, he’d only been hovering in the doorway to the loud and packed break room for a minute when someone had called his name and he’d looked up to see Jyn waving him over.

Thank god.

“So what’s it like having Draven as a supervisor?” she asked him through a mouthful of pasta once he had sat down with her.

“It’s…” he debated. Davits Draven, HR Advisor and Head of the Alliance Internship Programme, at least seemed competent and like he knew what he was doing. Cassian figured that he could be trusted to sign off on all his paperwork needed to get the required credits at the end of the internship… although there was the fact that according to two very gossipy PAs, he also apparently had a reputation of being ‘that dickhead who keeps calling meetings about shit that could 100% be solved through email’.

“It’s interesting,” Cassian decided on.

Jyn scoffed so loudly she nearly choked on her pasta. “You’re so nice,” she coughed. “Honestly, I’m pretty sure Draven hates me because I keep accidentally-on-purpose redirecting angry clients to his office phone.”

He tried not to laugh too much. She had sat with her legs resting long ways across one of the sofas that dotted the break room, but she’d swung them down when she’d called him over so that he’d have a place to sit. He noticed her heels had been tossed to the floor some feet away and she apparently didn’t give a damn if her pasta spilled all over her.

“Thanks for eating with me,” he said. He glanced over again at the other side of the break room where an argument was still apparently brewing over who was first in line for the microwave. It looked like it was all on the verge of boiling over and he added, “Also look, tell me the truth, am I going to get to heat this up today or not?”

“First rule about this office,” Jyn said. “never bring lunch that needs heating. You’ll never eat.”

“Noted,” He bitterly clipped the lid of his lunch container closed.

Jyn wrinkled her nose in sympathy. “Want some of my pasta?”

“Oh, I couldn’t–”

“Nah, it’s fine, promise–” She practically shoved the container into his hands. “It’s not the best, sorry. I’m not a chef for a reason.”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” Cassian said, warmly. “Your accent is British, right?”

“I am in fact one of like three British people in this office, yes,” she nodded. “I’m fairly certain my accent was the sole reason I was hired as the receptionist.”

“It wasn’t for your goat-wrangling skills?”

“No, believe it or not but those were just bonuses,” Jyn grinned. “What’s your accent?”

“I’m from Mexico.”

“Oh, nice. Sucks to be so far away though, right?”

“I’m not as far from home as you.”

“Still,” Jyn said through her food, barely pausing to swallow. “We’re the foreigners, we gotta stick together, you and I!”

He watched her in slight bemusement as they carried on eating in mostly companionable silence. The arguments over the microwave got louder and escalated to the point where someone actually started an official ‘Microwave Order’ list and others ditched the building entirely to go and buy something from the street vendors opposite.

Jyn snorted and shook her head at them. “Idiots,” he heard her say.

“Ok, so on the first day, I was required to give you the official bullshit orientation of Alliance Industries,” Jyn was saying as she lead them through into the office bullpen. Cubicles lined the large room, phones ringing, colleagues talking over walls and the tell-tale noise of fingernails clacking on keyboards. Jyn glanced up at him and carried on, “You know, about getting your paperwork in on time and how to file complaints with HR, shit that no one really cares about. Today, I’m going to give you the real orientation.”

She started down one hallway lined with cubicles. Her hair was always tied back in some kind of bun, always professional, always poised, but the way her eyes sparked as she looked up at him said that this receptionist knew things. He was glad that she’d practically insisted on becoming his friend. She pointed out the first cubicle and said, “We start in legal. That’s Jason Biggs, he’s all right. Next to him is Han Solo,” she snorted a little. “You’ll never meet a bigger arsehole in your life, but he at least tries. Will hit on almost anyone, despite the fact that he is 100% in love with our PR manager.”

Jyn continued in this stride as they traversed most of the entire office. She pointed out colleagues, friends, the managers to watch out for, the ones to not cross under any circumstances, and the ones who could be bribed with coffee to extend your deadlines. She pointed out one of the HODs Raddus, who had apparently borrowed her hole punch once and never given it back, and a new hire in graphic design who everyone knew had a ridiculous crush on his boss.

Cassian’s brain practically swam with the onslaught of information. “That’s Shara Bey – hey, bitch!” Jyn called out then into one of the fancier corner offices. “You can count on her for anything, except being on time. She’s 30 weeks pregnant and insists he’s the reason she’s so slow. Her husband works in IT.”

“So… it’s ok to date colleagues here then?” Cassian asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Jyn leaned in the doorway to Shara’s office. “What was it Draven said at the Developing Professional Relationships seminar?”

“‘You can fuck each other in the copy room all you like, so long as no one has to see it’,” Shara snorted, not even turning around from her computer.

“It’s good, though,” Jyn mentioned after laughing. “It means everyone can just get it out of their systems, rather than cluttering up the office with sexual tension. Unless you’re Han and Leia, amiright, Shara?”

“The less said about those two, the better.”

“Anyway,” Jyn turned back to him. “next thing to know: understand what someone means if they say they need help with the photocopier.”

Cassian was about 90% sure the entire conversation was going too damn fast. His mind was overloaded with information, his brain couldn’t keep up in English (or maybe it was the way she laughed) but whatever the reason was, he didn’t quite catch Jyn’s meaning and he ended up asking,

“I’m sorry? What does it mean?”

Thankfully, she didn’t tease him.

“It means they’re asking to go do it.”

He blinked. “But what if I actually honestly need help with the photocopier?”

She smiled. “Then you’re fucked.”

“Either way you’re fucked!” Shara threw back, making Jyn choke a little with laughter and step in to swat her upside the head.

They moved on from Shara’s office after that and honestly, Cassian was a little disappointed. She eventually told what seemed to be the life history of the entire office – who was sleeping with whom, who was looking to move up and who was looking for a new job, who had just transferred and who to make friends with so that you got free home-made muffins at four o’clock every Friday – but honestly, Cassian only wanted to know about her. And if there was anyone whose story she didn’t mention, it was her own.

But it was fine. He had several more weeks to go, after all.

The first time she wasn’t in the elevator was a few weeks in.

Honestly, he was fine with it. He barely even knew the woman, he had no right to be disappointed or whatever the hell feeling it was that he was swallowing down from creeping its way up his throat. No, instead he gripped his briefcase harder and thought of what kind of data he would be analysing that day.

When the elevator dinged on his floor, though, he at least quickly figured out where Jyn was. She was already at her desk, ten minutes early and apparently in a heated argument with Draven over what seemed to be a broken email attachment.

“I don’t know what the hell else you want me to do!” she was saying hotly, work phone tucked under one shoulder and also clicking around on her computer, clearly flustered.

“I’ve told you, get it fixed!”

“I’M ON HOLD, do I look like bloody tech staff?!”

“Is that how you talk to all of your direct superiors?”

“I’m the receptionist, not your PA, I don’t work for you,” she snapped. Someone on the phone must have answered her then because she suddenly snapped up straighter and grabbed the phone in her hand. “Yes! Thank god, look none of the attachments are opening in email and–”

“I have to print 50 copies of this by eight thirty!” Draven yelled in the general direction of the phone.

“WHAT DO YOU THINK I’M TRYING TO DO?”

Cassian honestly didn’t know what to do. Other workers were eyeing the two with interest, but ultimately just walking on past like it was no big deal. Cassian, on the other hand, was loath to even approach should he accidentally get stuck in the crosshairs. No one deserved to be chewed out like Jyn was, at least not this early in the morning, but Draven was also his boss, and he needed this internship to pass. Shit, shit, shit.

In the end, he hid himself behind a group of workers from customer service and walked in alongside them. He managed to avoid Draven’s eye, but accidentally caught Jyn’s just as he clearing them and heading for the main office. She smiled a little and mouthed, “Hey,” before rolling her eyes at Draven.

His heart pounded back.

The day naturally ended up being a bit of a crazy one. It just had to be one of those days when Han Solo would declare, “OFFICE FLOOR IS LAVA!” and Cassian was forced to spend most of his day trying to get places without touching the floor. Usually, it meant climbing over cubicle walls and hastily stepping around his collegues PCs and photo frames. At least Cassian had discovered that he was rather adept at the game, (“Andor’s light on his feet, who knew?” Han pointed out, impressed). However today all he had wanted was to reach Jyn’s desk, and without anything lining the corridor down to the elevators, nothing short of wheeling himself there on his desk chair was going to make it (which he kind of interpreted as a bit pathetic). As a result, he didn’t see her until the end of the day, as they were all leaving the building.

“I’m sorry Draven chewed you out this morning!” Cassian practically yelled after her once he caught the sight of her retreating back out on the street. For a second, he feared that Jyn wouldn’t or didn’t want to talk to him, but she paused when she heard his voice and turned.

“Hey, thanks,” she called back. “Sorry, I can’t stop and talk, the bus leaves at ten past and if I miss it I have to wait another half an hour–”

“I’ll walk with you,” he hurried forward to fall into step with her.

There was something about walking alongside her through the busy financial district in the early evening. They were out of the office, her in her leather jacket over top of her business casual and him simply trying not to trip over that fact.

“Draven’s an arse,” Jyn said, quietly.

He was starting to become familiar with the sentiment. “Is he like that with everyone, or…?”

“Or just with me?” Jyn shoved her hands in her pockets, heels clacking against the concrete beneath their feet. “He’s hated me ever since I started working there. I always assumed it was because I was young, but now I think it’s just because he’s a prick.”

“You’re not that young.”

“Exactly what a girl wants to hear,” she grinned.

“I just mean,” he held back the urge to knock her shoulder with his. That would be far too familiar, considering how long they’d known each other. Yes, definitely. “You can’t be much younger than me and I’m 26.”

She smiled a little. “I’m 24. I’ve been with Alliance since I was 19.”

“As the receptionist?”

“I know,” she rolled her eyes. “five years and I’m still only a receptionist. Will I ever figure out what I want to do with my life?”

“I wasn’t thinking that,” Cassian assured her.

“I know,” she said. “or at least I hoped. Just ignore me, I’m wallowing and feeling sorry for myself.”

They were approaching the bus stop now and the quick pace she’d kept up the entire time was apparently worth it as it seemed that the bus was only just pulling up now. “You’re allowed to – what was it? Wallow?”

“Yeah,” Jyn walked backward so that she could keep him in her sights as she joined the line. “thanks for listening.”

“No problem.”

“Hey,” she added, quickly. “who won the floor is lava today?”

“I did. Apparently, I’m light on my feet.”

Jyn laughed in response, congratulating him just as she climbed onto the bus and disappeared into its depths. He waved once and turned away, a grin on his face.

“So you’re the new intern?”

Cassian glanced up at the head that was staring over the dividing wall between his cubicle and the next. He had dark scruff, hair pulled back in a ponytail and a smile spreading across his face that was far too bright for someone at work at eight in the morning. “Um, yes,” Cassian replied.

The man leaned even further over the wall, extending his arm down so Cassian could shake his hand. “I’m Bodhi!” he said, happily. “So good to meet you, it’s been boring without a cubicle buddy.”

To be honest, Cassian wasn’t sure how anything in this office could ever be described as ‘boring’. Within his first three days, there had been at least six emergency drills for wild animal attacks (“Back away slowly! NEVER play dead!”) two minor fire incidents in the break room and one rather epic wheelie chair race from one end of the office to the other without touching the floor. He STILL didn’t know what the company actually did, but that was about when Leia Organa had kicked herself off a wall and spun her wheelie chair in front of Han Solo’s by about an inch, declaring herself the winner of the race and all fucking hell had broken loose.

“Boring! Right, wouldn’t want that,” he said, hastily.

“You’ve met Jyn, right?”

“The receptionist?” Cassian really needed to work on his self-control. Get it together, idiot. Don’t sound so excited.

“Yeah! She said that she’s been showing you around and stuff. Me and her and a bunch of others usually go out for drinks after work on a Friday,” Bodhi explained. “It’s just casual, no benders or anything, we do the pub quiz, that kinda thing. Did you want to come this week?”

“Oh,” Cassian suddenly blanked on words. Quite honestly, it sounded great. A chance to get to know his colleagues more, a chance to really get to know Jyn… “I’d love to – but I’ve got a lot of work to do and – I wouldn’t want to impose or anything–”

“No, no!” Bodhi insisted at once, frowning. “I swear, we all want you to come! Gotta get you on our side before Draven turns you into one of his mindless slaves, haha.”

Cassian hesitated. “It’s just drinks?”

“Just drinks.”

“And you’re sure no one minds if I come?”

“Jyn would have asked you herself, except she apparently had some kind of meltdown and made me do it,” Bodhi rolled his eyes. “Please, I’m dying to get to know the man who made Jyn Erso speechless!”

“You’re joking, surely.”

“Well… half joking,” Bodhi snorted. “Please?”

Cassian took a deep breath.

“Ok.”

She looked about as hungover as he still felt in the elevator on Monday.

“I blame you,” he told her at once.

“I did nothing,” she insisted, not even moving from where she was leaned back against the elevator wall, dark sunglasses covering her eyes even inside under the artificial lights.

“You’re a dirty enabler is what you are, getting me to drink two nights in a row so that I’m literally still feeling it on Monday morning.”

“Not my problem that you can’t handle tequila.”

He grinned though, despite himself. His weekend had been a blinding two days thanks to her. What had started as ‘casual drinks’ on a Friday night had of course turned into still hitting the clubs at three am, Jyn’s skirt almost up around her hips as he gave her a piggyback home. They had made quite the scene, Bodhi crying as he carried Leia’s heels in one hand and a bottle of wine in another, Han belting out Queen songs with his tie around his head, Leia barefoot and with her arm around who was apparently her brother Luke, who had turned up somewhere around midnight and worked in graphic design. Cassian couldn’t even remember adding Jyn on Facebook, but the next morning he had woken dumped outside his apartment door and with about five messages from her saying that they should hang out later. She had talked to him Saturday night over the aforementioned tequila, told him stories about office pranks on Draven and Han, told him about how she’d always wished that she’d gone to collage, about the one time a criminal from the Bail Bonds Office on floor 17 had taken someone hostage and the entire building had been forced into lockdown, and he had laughed and taken it all in.

Taken her in.

“Why did you never go to collage?” Cassian remembered asking her. They’d invited everyone else on Saturday, but they’d all had the sense to bail early this time. By eleven, they’d been the last ones left in the bar and she had sighed underneath the lights.

“I guess I didn’t think I could,” she’d answered him.

He glanced at her now, leaning her head back and attempting not to groan against what was no doubt a throbbing pain in her head. He watched the line of her jaw as she stared at the ceiling, the curve of her neck, the dip where her collarbone met her blouse and… oh, shit.

Yeah, he really was in trouble.

Thing is, it hadn’t been long.

Technically, he knew it was normal. People develop crushes within hours, let alone weeks, but the point he was trying to make in his head here, was that he was only going to be with Alliance for the next month and a half. Couldn’t he have at least, like…TRIED? What had started as a fleeting ‘I wouldn’t say no’ when he’d first met her had at some point turned into a monstrous crush so yeah, he was fucked, for sure. He at least liked to think he could also be subtle about it. He could subdue the smile that came to his face whenever he saw her in the elevator in the mornings, pretend that it wasn’t the highlight of his entire day. He could hold back, remain friendly and professional, asking for work advice and being able to admire the way she would lean over his desk without flipping his shit. Yes, he had this. He could do this.

Apparently, Bodhi didn’t seem to think so.

“Ok, what’s the deal?” he asked.

“What?” Cassian asked dumbly, ignoring how the other man’s head had stuck up over the dividing wall once more, like it usually did at varying times throughout their day.

Bodhi rolled his eyes in exaggerated exasperation. “You and Jyn!” he said. “I thought you totally liked her!”

“I’m trying to work here, can’t this wait until later?”

“I’m sorry, you think office hours are for work?”

Cassian shot his new friend a look, and Bodhi grinned.

“Ok, ok, but seriously. Ever since drinks last week, you’ve been acting weird. Did something happen between you guys?”

“NO,” he said, perhaps too quickly to ever actually be reasonably considered the truth. He caught Bodhi’s look and he groaned, “No, seriously, nothing happened. I just…” He shoved his chair away from his desk and computer, rubbing his forehead warily. “I like her, yeah, but I’m trying to be professional about it, all right?”

“And how’s that working out?”

“Divine,” Cassian grumbled. Luckily, before Bodhi could grill him more, Jyn herself suddenly burst into Bodhi’s cubicle. Cassian tried not to have a heart attack as she practically threw herself up to the wall alongside Bodhi and exclaimed,

“Guys! You have to come witness this!”

Apparently unable to get out of whatever it was that was happening, Cassian and Bodhi followed Jyn all the way down to Shara Bey’s office on the opposite side of the office bullpen. Shara was apparently finding it tough to find things to do in her last week of work, since she totally welcomed them all piling slightly suspiciously into her office. She swung herself around in her chair like Doctor Evil while Jyn happily boosted herself up onto her desk.

“What’s going on?” Bodhi asked in amusement.

“Ok, I’m going spare with nothing to do, so I’ve been fucking with Han all afternoon,” Shara explained. “I got Kes to go and change the settings on his computer while he was at lunch so that every time he gets an email, the notification is a duck quacking. It’s driving him mad and he doesn’t know how to change it back – watch!” She turned and hit send on what must have been a pre-written email. They all listened carefully and sure enough, a faint quacking from out the door and down the other end of the corridor echoed down. As if on cue, someone roared in annoyance and quickly yelled out,

“SHARA BEY, I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD!”

They all burst out laughing. Cassian tried not to, but it was hard when Jyn looked at him like that (doubled over, face and neck flushing red). She caught his eye and he was unable to help it.

“You – you want to know the best part?” Shara added once they’d all somewhat calmed down.

“What?” Cassian asked.

“Watch what happens when I send out a group email.”

With ‘reply to all’ entered into the recipients box, Shara hit send once more. Almost at once, what sounded like an entire menagerie of animals sounded off. Ducks quacked, cows mooed, and horses neighed as the entire office collectively groaned in exasperation and Jyn nearly fell off the desk in her hysterics at the office turning into a zoo. Cassian hastily moved forward, arms outstretched, to keep her from face-planting. It was only once he was assured she wasn’t going to fall and was moving back when he caught the look on Bodhi’s face from across the office.

“Stop it,” Cassian insisted later that day.

“Stop what?”

“It. That look. Everything.”

“Yeah,” Bodhi grinned. “You’re brilliant at staying professional.”

“So you’re a math major, right?”

Cassian nodded in the affirmative, glancing at her from where he was keeping her company on his lunch break. Jyn wasn’t allowed to have hers today since at approximately 11.59am, someone had fucked up and some kind of Statistical Disaster had apparently happened that, according to the HOD, SHE had to fix since it had already been emailed through. “Goddamn motherfucker…” she had been grumbling when he’d swung by her front desk and he’d tried not to be too pleased when she’d called him an angel upon finding out that he’d brought her lunch to her desk for her. Now, she turned her computer screen to face him and he tried not to have a mini heart attack when she grabbed his hand, pulling him forward and closer towards her.

“I’m going bloody nuts! Look at this, am I even doing this right?”

Cassian squinted at the spreadsheets. He was silent for so long, Jyn started whacking his arm.

“Oh god. Oh fucking lord. I fucked it up even worse didn’t I? Mothma is going to FIRE my arse–”

“Jyn, you literally did this?”

“Yeah – I mean, I tried, but this really isn’t my area and I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with the–”

“You could fucking do my job,” he laughed, turning back to her. He might’ve been slightly in awe.

“Seriously?” Jyn peered back at the computer in amazement. “You mean I did good?”

“Fucking good,” Cassian said. “Do people make you do analysis like this all the time?”

“I usually wing it and hope for the best after a lot of Googling. Honestly, what even is your job?”

“I’m still asking myself that and I’ve been here weeks now,” She snorted, leaning back in her chair. Cassian copied her stance opposite her against her desk as he added, “Jyn, I wasn’t kidding. You could do this job, if you wanted. Really, why did you never go to collage? You said before you didn’t think you could, but you’ve really proved yourself wrong just now.”

Jyn shrugged a little, but sighed. “Have I ever told you about my dad?”

He blinked a little at how on earth the conversation had suddenly gone in this direction. It suddenly seemed all so personal, too personal for the little length of time that they’d known each other, but somehow at the same time the exact right amount of personal for the way they’d been getting to know each other. He shook his head and Jyn carried on,

“He’s a scientist. Chemistry, specifically and something else even more so, but I never exactly understand what it is. All I know is that he’s world-renown, published what feels like thousands of articles in journals and shit and is probably the smartest man you’ll ever meet. I love him to pieces because at the end of the day he’s just my dad, but… it was a lot to live up to.”

“Wow.”

“Thing is, I was always interested in business,” Jyn shrugged. She gestured back at her computer screen and added, “This kinda thing, it fascinates me, but I guess I never thought it was as good as studying chemistry so I just… never did. Dad’s always supported me no matter what, but…”

“You could do this, Jyn.”

“I think I’m finally starting to realise it, yeah,” she said. She nudged his leg with her own and said, “Thanks, Cassian. I’m glad you chose this insane company as your internship.”

He might have blinked a fraction of a second too long, burning the feeling of her looking at him like that into his brain.

“I am, too.”

Sometimes an unexpected fire drill could be a great thing… and other times, not so great.

“This presentation is going to run late now!” Leia was huffing next to Cassian as they were all forced out of their wonderfully air-conditioned office and out to the evacuation point across the street. “and since the presentation will run late, my meeting with Mothma will run late, which means I will probably miss the ten past bus, which means I WILL MISS PILATES AGAIN, GODDAMN–”

“Oh no,” Jyn’s voice turned up, rolling her eyes as she flung an arm around Leia’s shoulders. “not Pilates!”

“Get off me, it’s like a tropical sauna out here,” Leia said in disgust.

Jyn just laughed. “So what set off the alarm this time? Any bets? Rats chew through the wiring again, or was it yet another Microwave Incident?”

“For some reason,” Leia was glaring in the direction of the building. “I shrewdly suspect Han.”

“You suspect him for everything.”

“And I’m right about 90% of the time,” she pointed out.

Cassian stayed quiet. He’d quickly learned that that was the best approach to surviving whenever Han and Leia came your way. They seemed like such a contradiction, Leia always looking very professional in her blouses and elaborate up-dos, the PR Manager always ready to talk their arses out of anything… and then there was Han Solo, with his tie always shoved rebelliously in his pocket, bedazzled briefcase and known for always accidentally spilling confidential details about clients on prime time news channels. Half the time Cassian couldn’t tell if Han and Leia even liked each other, although Jyn had at least assured him that his guess was as good as the rest of theirs.

“Yeah, for two people who can’t seem to talk without bickering, they sure as hell are terrible at staying away from each other,” she’d once mentioned.

They were forced to stand out on the lawn in the park across the street for a good half an hour while the designated fire wardens cleared the building. The fire department then arrived to inform them all that the cause of the fire had probably been someone attempting to cook instant mac and cheese with the fax machine again. Han looked smug for all of five seconds before Leia was yelling his name, and then he had the decency to look ashamed.

“Look, Princess–” he began hastily.

“You moron!” she thumped him hard on the arm. “I am not forgiving you for this!”

“How do you even know it was me? I deny everything!”

“Because who the hell else would attempt to use the fax machine as a cooking implement?”

“Hey, that thing is so damn ancient I literally risk exploding every time I’m forced to use it! It’s so obsolete, I don’t even know why–”

“So you admit that it was you!”

“I confess to having used said machine before at some point in time,” Han pointed out cheerfully. “Nowhere in that statement, however, did I confess to setting off the fire alarms.”

“You really are a lawyer, aren’t you?” Cassian pointed out.

“I don’t know, sometimes I think he got his degree off the internet,” Leia glared, causing Han to furrow his eyebrows and exclaim,

“Oi!”

“I don’t know why you’re all still arguing, there’s clearly only one solution here,” Jyn pointed out. When both Cassian, Han and Leia all turned to stare at her, she shrugged and said, “Leia’s pissed because she’ll be missing pilates. It’s hot as balls out here. Make him do pilates as punishment.”

“I like this plan,” Leia said with a smirk, turning her folded arms onto Han.

His expression was stricken. “But this is a new suit.”

“On the ground. You’re working your core.”

It was as good as a confession when Han finally conceded and allowed himself to get ordered into doing crunches on the hot grass.

At around 3.30pm, the late-snack munchies apparently ran rampart throughout the office.

You couldn’t so much as rustle a protein bar wrapper without getting at least ten people’s heads popping up from over their cubicle walls like meerkats, all in search of who had the coveted snack. Therefore, whenever Cassian wanted to eat his trail mix in peace, he usually ended up seeking refuge underneath Jyn’s desk. The only downside was that he had to share as payment.

“God, I could live off this stuff,” she said with her mouth full of pecan nuts and M&M’s. “Only an hour and a half to go.”

“Only four weeks to go,” Cassian said. Jyn pulled her chair out from her desk then so that she could glance down at him.

“What? You’re halfway through already?” she asked. “It feels like you’ve been here forever.”

Her tone changed slightly with her words, though Cassian couldn’t figure out how. Jyn had never exactly struck him as a overly cheery person, but she could laugh. She could smile. But now she wasn’t doing either and maybe that was because now that he thought about it, he wasn’t sure he’d ever seen those laughs or smiles directed any anyone other than himself, excepting maybe Bodhi and the occasional prank on Draven. He didn’t know what that meant, or even if it did mean anything (not to mention that he berated himself for even thinking that he might want it to mean something in the first place).

“I know,” he forced himself to say casually. “This place is nuts, but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t want to leave.”

“Then don’t.”

“Sorry?”

He stared at her a moment as Jyn swung back to her desk. She gestured for him to come up and he clambered to his feet to join her. She was pulling up an open tab on her computer screen, which if he wasn’t mistaken at first glance, looked like a job vacancy for somewhere within Alliance Industries. Jyn pointed it out and said,

“The lady on maternity leave who’s desk you’ve been using – she told Mothma that she’s not coming back anymore, so the job’s open,” She nudged him with an elbow and added, “You should apply.”

“No… really?” Cassian peered at the screen closer. “Wait, what does the title say, I need to know what this job fucking is–”

“‘Reporting and Data Analyst’, apparently.”

“Well, that is moderately unhelpful,” Cassian muttered. But on a louder note, he added, “but I can’t apply – I haven’t even finished my studies yet, I have another entire year to go!”

“Oh, who needs a fucking degree?” Jyn waved a hand.

“Seriously–”

“You might think I’m joking, but I’m serious too – look –” She pointed out a headline that said ‘Potential applicants should have the following’. “They don’t even specify a degree, they’re asking for shit like ‘experience with leadership’ and ‘positive attitude’. Plus they know you! You’ll have worked here for two months doing this sort of thing, I’ll bet if you applied, you’d be guaranteed an interview, if not the job entirely.”

Honestly, it was a serious consideration and a tempting one at that. He had heard their CEO Mothma talk on more than one occasion about how she always preferred to hire within the existing company, that it was ideal since the candidate would already have affiliation with them and know how things worked and operated. Not to mention the appeal of staying and working alongside Jyn for however long he wanted, rather than having to face the bright red deadline of a few weeks from now when his internship would be over…

But he glanced up at her hopeful face and realised that there was a much better candidate who should apply, rather than him.

“You should do it.”

“I’m sorry?” Jyn snorted.

“You should apply!” Cassian insisted. “We both know you have the knack for it, you just pointed out that you don’t need a degree, and you already work for the company! It would be better pay, work that you’re more interested in… Jyn, you should honestly do this.”

She shook her head, scoffing. “You’re out of your mind. Gimme more trail mix.”

He handed out the bag exasperatedly and she practically snatched it off him. “You’re being stupid,” he pointed out.

“And you’re hogging the snacks!”

It seemed that she wouldn’t discuss it any further, since his attempts at pushing the subject fell on distractions and otherwise deaf ears until eventually, Draven tracked him down and forced him back to work. Still, as he was being practically frog-marched away, Cassian glanced back and noticed her sitting and staring at her computer screen hard. Like her mind was blowing through a million thoughts per second.

She could do it.

He had to make her see that.

#rebelcaptain #rcvalentine #rogue one #rogue one fanfic #ro #ro fanfic #rebelcaptainsecretvalentine #jesus christ i hope to god that this is ok #i have zero(0) experience with the subject matter #so all details are deliberately vague #and i went waaaaay too overboard so this will have like 3 parts #and the editing is probably shitty bc i've been sick the last entire week #but!!!!i finished it!!!!!!!!!#and i really hope you like it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!#xoxoxo #my fanfiction #alliance industries

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theastrophilearchitect · 3 years

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WandaVision series review part 1.

Because I have some things to say.

This is going to be posted on March 19th, at which point the WandaVision (WV) finale will have been out for two weeks; also the day Falcon and the Winter Soldier (FatWS) begins, which I have, for whatever reason, begun to think of as WandaVision's sequel, despite being a completely separate series. In 2019, FatWS was actually scheduled for before WV, so that makes no sense.

Anyway, I'm going to begin with a spoiler-free review of the series as a whole, then I'm going to go into an episode-by-episode breakdown as I re-watch the show, but the spoiler-free section will contain spoilers for the rest of the MCU. This part will cover episodes 1-3, part 2 will cover 4-6, and part 3 7-9. I’d love to do this in one post, but it’s just a little overwhelming.

If for whatever reason you don't know vaguely what WV is about, you've been living as a hermit for literally the last six years. But if you don't know: in 2015, Marvel Studios released Avengers: Age of Ultron (AoU), technically the second movie in the 'Avengers' franchise, but the eleventh movie set in the MCU, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. AoU introduced three main characters to the MCU: Vision, a synthezoid-human-robot-AI-android thing, who I would call a person but it's complicated - his consciousness is derived from the mind stone, one of six infinity stones, JARVIS, Tony Stark/Iron Man's AI assistant, Tony Stark himself, Bruce Banner/the Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Ultron, the villain of the movie, who's more of a robot than Vision, but he's not the point. The movie also introduces Wanda and Pietro Maximoff, known in the comics as Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, though they are never called this in the movies. The Maximoffs are twins who volunteered for experimentation from HYDRA, an evil Nazi organisation who provide the main antagonists in the Captain America trilogy. We are told they each gained superhuman powers from the mind stone - Pietro has an increased metabolism and improved thermal homeostasis, and Wanda can do neural electrical interfacing, telekinesis and mental manipulation, or, in the words of Maria Hill, 'He's fast and she's weird.'

Pietro Maximoff is promptly killed by somehow failing to dodge bullets, while Wanda and Vision join the Avengers, and eventually fall in love. I'm not explaining Avengers: Infinity War. Or Avengers: Endgame. If you haven't them, why are you reading this?

Anyway, so Avengers: Endgame is the third-to-last movie in Phase Three of the MCU, but is the last part of Wanda and Vision's story pre-WandaVision, and wraps up with Vision dead and Wanda grieving.

So, should you watch WandaVision? Yes. Absolutely.

We already know our two main characters and several of the other characters, including Monica Rambeau from Captain Marvel, grown up, Darcy Lewis from the Thor franchise and Jimmy Woo from Ant-Man and the Wasp, but we're also introduced to a cast of new characters, mainly new villains (but then superhero movies so rarely use old villains), who are well-developed and intriguing - you'll either love them or love to hate them.

The plot leaves you on the edge of your seat - nearly every episode ends on a cliff hanger, and leaves you with a thousand questions. It answers the bare minimum, the final episode leaving us still with some questions, but it is the perfect way to milk our investment.

On the other hand, if you aren't familiar with the MCU, Wanda and Vision, you may have quite a hard time understanding every aspect. So long as you have a vague idea of the context, you can follow the plot, but you won't enjoy it nearly as much. I really don't think it's worth watching the entirety of the MCU solely for this show, but I also think it's worth watching the MCU movies, full stop.

The series is only available on Disney+, which absolutely sucks. I've had a Disney+ subscription since it was released in the UK, so this wasn't an issue for me, but it does generally suck. Even if you are up to date with MCU movies, if you don't have a Disney+ subscription, you can't watch it. The streaming service stopped offering free trials in July 2020 due to the release of the Hamilton pro-shot, knowing they'd get an influx of new subscribers, but not wanting people to be able to watch it without paying. Capitalism at its finest.

Whether or not the cost of one month's subscription for WandaVision is worth it is subjective - though now all the episodes have been released you could easily watch it and only have to pay once.

Ultimately, I would argue WandaVision is absolutely worth watching, though someone who isn't up to date on MCU films wouldn't enjoy it as much as someone who is, and with its runtime of just under six hours, broken into nine episodes, it may not be worth the Disney+ subscription for you personally, especially if you're not up to date on the MCU. However, I would like to end this section on a positive note: I cannot get over how awe-inspiring the storytelling on this show is. Marvel has its issues with storytelling, with things often feeling disjointed in an attempt to remain unpredictable and prevent actors (*ahem* Tom Holland) spoiling events, but WandaVision doesn't feel that way at all. It's unlike any superhero show I've seen before, plays on morality and plays with sitcom formats from the last 70 years, meaning you'll love it even if, like me, you're not a fan of action-focused media - the only long action scenes occur in the last episode.

So, yes. five stars.

~SPOILER ALERT~

Beyond this mark, I'm going to go into an episode-by-episode breakdown, and it will be basically all spoilers from here. If you haven't seen the show and care about spoilers, go away. Please don't spoil yourself.

Also, in each episode's breakdown, I may point out foreshadowing and things I only notice because I've watched it already, so unless you've seen all nine episodes, you may find spoilers even if you only read about the episodes you have seen.

I watched WandaVision episode by episode as it was released, and since the first two episodes were released nearly two months ago, I'm going to re-watch the show and break it down as I go.

Episode One: 'Filmed Before A Live Studio Audience' This episode was released on January 15th along with episode two, and I didn't actually watch it until the Sunday because I wasn't invested yet, and, of all the MCU shows announced, this was kinda the one I was dreading. Before this show, I loved Wanda, but hated Vision, so I also hated their romance. I'd also seen the sitcom-style trailers and was absolutely terrified it would be terrible, so I wanted to finish the season of the show I was currently watching before watching the episodes.

So let's get into it.

The episode is only 29 minutes along, including the nearly-ten-minute credits, which is pretty standard sitcom-episode length. We open with the Marvel introduction, but as the camera zooms out, we're shown the logo in a fuzzy, monochrome, early-1900s style. The aspect ratio also decreases, which is a nice touch but very annoying because the show itself has a larger ratio, meaning there's a lovely thick black border all the way around the frame. But that's just a formatting complaint.

We move into a 50s-sitcom-style song-montage in which Wanda and Vision, looking human like that single scene in Infinity war are coming home, just married. Wanda magically buys the house and with some weird Vision-power stuff, he carries her over the threshold to their new house, and we see the logo.

Thoughts at this point? Just what? How is Vision alive? Why is it black and white? Why is there a musical song? Why are we in the 1950s? How are they married? Why aren't they being Avengers? Just sheer confusion.

Wanda uses her powers in this episode without her typical red-smoke-sparkles, and they make a lot of gags, received with a laughing track, about their powers, but generally follow a sitcom formula, with the plot of having Vision's boss for dinner and needing to impress him.

Also, it’s noteworthy that what little was left of Wanda’s Sokovian accent by Avengers: Endgame has completely vanished.

It's very odd to see Vision as Vision, as in synthezoid would-be-red-if-it-weren't-in-black-and-white face, dressed in regular clothes instead of his cape and superhero get-up. It seems like his superhero clothes aren't actually a part of him, but when he walks through things, they go with him, though he can't take other objects with him. This could be because they were made at the same time as him, but he also takes his other clothes with him. That's just a question as to the limits of his capabilities, though.

We're quickly introduced to their new neighbour, Agnes, cast in the role of Nosy Neighbour, but the cast of this episode stays incredibly small. Agnes mentions her mother-in-law being in town and talks about her husband Ralph, though neither of these characters are introduced.

Vision goes to work, raising the question of why a superhero synthezoid needs an office job, especially one he apparently doesn't know the purpose of.

Later, Vision calls Wanda from work, and she answers the phone as 'Vision residence', which is confusing on a number of levels. Wanda is a perfectly normal name, perfectly able to blend into this setting - Vision is not. Especially when he has no surname and this answering gives the impression Wanda has taken his name, and literally become 'Wanda Vision,' which is likely the point, but confusing nonetheless.

Here comes a 1950s style advert, advertising the 'ToastMate 2000'. In the ad, the two people put bread into the toaster, which toasts and beeps for an unnervingly long time before coming out. We're then told it's made by Stark Industries (Iron Man's company) with the slogan: 'Forget the past; this is your future!' Ominous, and clearly playing into the fact we seem to be on an alternate timeline.

Towards the end of the episode, Vision's boss's wife, Mrs Hart, begins asking questions about their past - where they moved from, how long they've been married, children, etc. - and Wanda and Vision freeze, trying to answer, but apparently unable to remember. Mr Hart, Vision's boss presses, but they fail to answer. Mr Hart begins to choke, and Wanda and Vision freeze, while his wife laughs, telling him over and over to stop it, until he falls out of his chair, and Wanda tells Vision to help him, which he does using his powers, though neither Mr nor Mrs Hart question this, and quickly leave, having barely eaten. Overall, the dinner is apparently a success.

Wanda and Vision realise they don't have wedding rings, and Wanda makes some, in a clearly cut-together shot reminiscent of the intended style. The camera then pans out to 50s-style credits, crediting the two cast members, producer, director, writer, photographer, music director, production manager, supervising editor and several other roles, with names I'm sure have some relevance, either to real cast members or some comic reference, but don't mean much to me.

The camera continued to pan out, showing the episode playing on an old fashioned TV in some kind of technological/industrial room. A hand presses a remote button, and we cut to the real credits, against a background of warped shots of screens, which then zooms into the pixels and we see a load of formations, such as of their house. Credits which are seven minutes long, though the length has nothing to do with the show itself.

One more thing: it's hard to notice during the episode, but during the credits we see a warped shot of Vision, in which his eyes appear human, where previously they've been fairly robotic.

This episode brings up a million questions and answers literally none, so, glad there's another episode, we move on. I enjoyed this episode, and enjoy it more the second time round, now knowing the answers to most of my questions, but it's so frustrating.

Episode Two: 'Don't Touch That Dial' This episode is 36 minutes long including credits, which is still fairly standard sitcom length. I watched this one directly after the first, and my frustration only continued.

Something I've only just noticed watching this the second time through: this episode opens with a recap of the first, and it recalls the events without including character introductions--except for Agnes. The recap includes her introduction, but nothing else of her, which, even though she's technically irrelevant in episode one, clearly means the writers are trying to make the audience remember her.

The comedy-style intro to this episode is in a cartoon-style, which opens with an image of the moon surrounded by six stars which light up in turn, a nod to the infinity stones.

Here, Wanda and Vision--Wanda especially--are wearing less traditional-50s clothes, though the first time round I didn't question this because Wanda's hair was nearly the same--just a little longer and more relaxed--and so was the way it was shot, the black-and-white, and the aspect ratio. I didn't quite make the decade-jumping connection, though looking back it is fairly obvious we've shifted to the 1960s.

Since this episode still follows a comedy formula, in which every episode has its own arc which rarely intersects others, the plot of this episode is Wanda and Vision participating in a town talent show and attempting to blend in. After the intro, we see Vision practising, and Wanda brings out a cabinet of mysteries for their act, which has an image reminiscent of the mind stone on the doors.

With Wanda acting as Vision's magical assistant, he gives her the name 'Glamour,' a nod to her powers, and 'glamour' in the more magical, less-celebrity sense. It also matches Vision's magician's name, 'Illusion,' from which it becomes a nod to the fact this whole set-up seems so abnormal, and, an illusion or glamour.

Before the intro to this episode, we see Wanda and Vision getting woken up in the night by some banging. Later in the episode, we hear whirring and another bang, which prompts Wanda to go outside to investigate, where she finds a crashed toy helicopter, in colour. The helicopter has a sword symbol on it--the first time we see this.

Agnes then brings Wanda a rabbit for the magic act, who she calls Senor Scratchy, a reference to Nick Scratch, a colloquial name for the devil. This was part of what led to initial speculations about which character was actually comic-villain Mephisto in disguise - WandaVision also draws heavily from comic series 'House of X', in which Mephisto is the villain. Obviously, people began assuming Agnes was either Mephisto in disguise, or working for him.

Agnes then advises Wanda about Dottie, the leader of some organisation Wanda is apparently trying to join. Skip to the meeting, Wanda emulates Dottie’s actions to appeal to her. Dottie is then rude to a woman giving some sort of account, but she forgot to ask about the chairs, to which Dottie says ‘Devil’s in the details, Bev.’ Agnes then says to Wanda, ‘That’s not the only place he is,’ which added to the speculation about Mephisto.

The committee Wanda is with is working on the talent show to raise money for the elementary school--’For the children.’ This phrase is repeated throughout the episode, and foreshadows Wanda’s motivations as the show progresses. Wanda meets a woman named Geraldine, who says she feels out of place, foreshadowing her true identity, and how she, personally, came to Westview.

Meanwhile, Vision attends a neighbourhood watch meeting and one of the men offers him a stick of gum, which he takes despite the fact he can’t actually eat food, as a synthezoid. One of the men slaps him on the back fondly, and Vision swallows the gum, which we see as a cartoon of it going down his mechanical oesophagus.

Wanda stays behind at the committee meeting to help Dottie clean up, and Dottie tells her she’d heard things about Wanda and her husband, which Wanda responds she ‘doesn’t mean anyone any harm,’ and Dottie tells her she doesn’t believe her, as though she’s mentally returned to reality, continuing to foreshadow the reveal in the next few episodes. The camera zooms in, the music intensifies, and a voice comes from the radio beside them, asking if Wanda can hear him. Dottie asks, panicked, who it is, and who Wanda is. The radio short-circuits, and Dottie breaks the glass she holds, cutting her hand, and the blood is red.

The advert in this episode contains the same actors from the previous one, this time advertising the Strucker watch--a reference to Wolfgang von Strucker, a Nazi villain from the Captain America franchise; also the head scientist on the experiments which Avengers: Age of Ultron claims gave the Maximoff twins their powers. The slogan is ‘He’ll make time for you,’ which, even now, I’m not completely sure what it’s a reference to, or who the ‘he’ could be, but it seems to further suggest Mephisto’s involvement, despite that not actually being the case.

Cut to the talent show, Wanda panics because Vision is late. He shows up, walking and acting as if drunk, and we’re shown the gum is stuck around some gears in his gut. On stage, Dottie makes the audience chorus ‘for the children’ again, and Wanda and Vision come out. Because of the gum stuck in Vision, the act goes sincerely wrong, and he uses his powers out in the open, but Wanda manages to use hers to apparently hide this from the audience. They bring out the cabinet of mysteries, and Agnes asks sarcastically if they’re sure they don’t want an audience volunteer named ‘my husband Ralph?’, the second mention of Ralph in the series.

Vision taps the box with his wand before Wanda gets inside, and the audience starts chanting ‘What’s in the box?’ Wanda panics, does something with her powers, and opens it to reveal a very confused Geraldine inside. Their act ends, and Wanda uses her powers to find and release the gum stuck in Vision, and he seems to ‘sober up’. They try to leave, but Dottie calls them up on stage, praises them and presents them with a trophy for their comedy. Wanda calls up Geraldine, who asks what happened, but they play the ‘magician never reveals his secrets’ card.

They get home, and joke about it, repeating ‘for the children’. Wanda gets up, deciding to get popcorn, and is suddenly quite pregnant, where she very much wasn’t before. There’s a thud outside, and they go to investigate. A manhole cover in the road shifts, and somebody in a beekeeper’s suit, with the sword logo on the back, emerges, face in shadow. Wanda merely says ‘no’, and we rewind to before the thud. Colour then begins to bloom onto the screen, and the episode ends, with an echo of the voice from the radio.

Looking back, I think the shift to colour on Wanda’s part may have been a decision because of the helicopter, and the blood--the beekeeper prompted it, but she’s trying to hide the fact that the things which do not belong are so obviously out of place.

This episode holds no more answers than the last, and has the same comedy tone with the ominous undertones as the last, but also contains significantly more characters and locations, as though this sitcom world has expanded.

And then we had to wait a week for episode 3.

Episode Three: ‘Now in Colour’ And we shift to the seventies. This episode’s recap recalls all the major points of the last episode, including Geraldine’s introduction. This episode is only 32 minutes including credits; longer than the first, but shorter than the last, so we’re still sticking to the comedy format, and the episodes aren’t yet lengthening.

Just a point a little irrelevant to this: WandaVision’s total runtime is about six hours, and we’re getting six FatWS episodes, which is probably about the same runtime but a little disappointing (though that’s mostly because it means there’ll be a couple weeks where we get nothing between it and Loki).

The introduction to this episode is more classic sitcom, with the long pop-style song over a montage of the characters--exactly what you’d expect from the seventies. The episode opens with a doctor at their home, who tells them she’s about four months along, which she obviously isn’t. Vision questions how this happened, but it becomes fairly clear to the audience this is Wanda’s doing. Vision asks the doctor not to tell people about the pregnancy, and sees his neighbour to the non-Agnes side, Herb, trimming his hedge, but the hedge-trimmer is going through the garden wall, and he hasn’t seemed to have noticed. Vision points this out, Herb verbally acknowledges him, but keeps going.

Vision returns inside, and Wanda’s pregnancy has progressed even further. Wanda uses her magic to prepare the baby’s room, and her magic is still missing her signature scarlet, a continuing sign something is wrong. The baby kicks, Wanda describes it as ‘fluttery’, and accidentally makes the butterflies on the baby’s mobile real.

Vision mentions the name ‘Billy’, and Wanda says ‘Tommy’, ‘a nice, classic American name’, returning emphasis to their efforts to fit in. Wanda gets Braxton-Hicks contractions, and her powers turn on the tap, open the window, flare the lights--the pregnancy causes her to lose control of her powers, and the block’s power goes out. Wanda mentions the people of Westview ‘always seem to be on the verge of discovering [their] secret’, and Vision says something seems wrong there. The music intensifies and the camera zooms in, then we cut back to before he said that, but without the rewind sequence we saw in the last episode.

And Wanda goes into real labour, sending Vision in a panic. Then it begins to rain inside, and Wanda comments she thinks her water has broken.

Cut to commercial! Same actors again, this time for Hydra Soak--’find the goddess within’. It’s a bath product meant to take you away from your problems--a reference to Wanda’s apparent escape from what she was left with after Endgame. I’m not completely sure what all the HYDRA references are about, even after watching the whole series.

It stops raining inside, and Wanda opens the windows to dry out the house, and I cannot get over how perfect her hair is in this episode. It’s perfect in the others, too, but this time, it’s perfectly straight, not a strand out of place, and I just can’t get over it.

Vision goes after the doctor, who was about to go on vacation when he left, and the doorbell rings. Wanda puts on a coat to hide her belly, and welcomes Geraldine in, but tells her it isn’t a good time. Wanda gets a contraction, and her coat transforms. And again. So she throws it off, and uses a fruit bowl to disguise it, but Geraldine doesn’t leave.

A stork appears behind Geraldine, apparently the one Vision painted on the nursery wall earlier, and Wanda has to do her best to keep Geraldine from seeing it. She tries to make it vanish in a cloud of red smoke, her typical magic, but fails, and Geraldine eventually hears the stork, but Wanda tells her it’s the ice maker.

The baby, however, it very quickly coming, and Geraldine sees Wanda’s belly. She lays Wanda down, and she births the baby, while light fixtures break and paintings spin, before Vision arrives. My God, her hair is so damn perfect. The baby’s a boy, and Vision concedes to Wanda’s name choice of Tommy. Then Wanda screams again, and Billy is born. For the children.

Vision goes outside with the doctor, and asks about his trip. The doctor tells him that small towns are ‘so hard to... escape,’ yet another ominous implication. The doctor leaves, but Herb is still outside, now without the hedge-trimmer, but with Agnes. They whisper about something, then Vision goes over. Agnes says ‘Ralph looks better in the dark, so I’m not complaining,’ when he asks if they lost power, too. And Agnes asks if Geraldine is with Wanda, as though she is suspicious, though knowing how episode seven ends, her true concern is clear.

Inside, Wanda tells Geraldine she’s also a twin, and the music intensifies. Geraldine says, ‘He was killed by Ultron, wasn’t he?’ in reference to Pietro--Quicksilver.

Agnes says Geraldine is new to town, no husband, and no home.

Wanda asks what Geraldine said, but Geraldine goes back to complimenting her. Wanda presses, but Geraldine’s sudden clarity seems to have gone. Then we zoom in on Geraldine’s necklace, and it’s the Sword logo.

Herb tells Vision Geraldine ‘came here because we’re all...’,but Herb can’t get the words out.

Wanda asks about the symbol, who Geraldine is, but she says she doesn’t answer.

Agnes makes Herb stop talking, and leaves. Vision returns inside, and Wanda tells him, rather monotonously, that Geraldine had to return home. But the camera cuts to the Westview sign, suddenly with a wider, more modern aspect ratio. It’s night, the air ripples like TV static, and Geraldine comes flying out, as though pushed. She collapses on the ground; cars approach, a helicopter casts a spotlight on her. We pan out to some kind of camp, and cut, to that dreaded ‘Please stand by’ credits screen.

And episode three ends, leaving us still without answers, but at least a little confirmation of something malevolent occurring.

So, that’s my initial overview and breakdown of episodes 1-3. Part 2 will contain episodes 4-6, and part 3 7-9 plus my final thoughts.

But that’s that for this week’s post; the next two parts should be up next week and the week after, unless I have something I want to post more.

Anyway, go drink some water, eat something if you haven’t eaten in the last few hours--you’re amazing, you’re beautiful, and you so deserve everything you have, and more.

Bye!

#wandavision #marvel #mcu #avengers #marvel cinematic universe #disney #disneyplus #disney planes #the avengers #wanda #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch #vision #quicksilver #maximoff #tv review #show review #programme review #tv show review

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consulting-celiac-in-the-tardis · 6 years

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11 Things People with Celiac Disease Do That Seem "High Maintenance" But Actually Aren’t

New blog post! After you’ve recovered from the initial shock of a celiac disease diagnosis and started adapting to living gluten free, you’ll probably begin noticing just how much your chronic illness shapes your everyday life. You might even find yourself feeling guilty for being so “high maintenance” because of the new precautions you have to take for celiac disease.

This Celiac Disease Awareness Month, I want to kick that guilt to the curb. As soon as I read this post about seemingly "high maintenance" things people with chronic illnesses do, I knew that I had to write a post from the perspective of someone with celiac disease. So whether you have celiac disease and want to stop feeling self-conscious or guilty for the gluten free lifestyle you must follow or are a celiac’s loved one and want to better understand what it takes to live with celiac disease, keep reading to discover eleven things people with celiac disease do that seem high maintenance but really aren’t.

1. Traveling with enough gluten free food to feed a small army.

There’s a running joke in my friend group and family that I’m not high maintenance except when it comes to food. Whenever I’m traveling, I don’t need to bring a lot of clothes or personal hygiene products, but I almost always have at least one bag or suitcase full of gluten free food.

Thanks to the increase in popularity of gluten free foods in recent years, it is easier to find celiac safe food in more places. However, gluten free products can vary greatly in prices between one place and another, and different locations of the same grocery store chain might not sell the same gluten free products. I typically follow the “better safe than sorry” mantra and often pack more food than I actually need, and I imagine that many celiacs (especially newly diagnosed celiacs still figuring out where they can safely shop for gluten free food) adopt a similar strategy. So if our suitcases do feel heavier than the average bag, friends and family can rest assured that there is some solid logic behind our food stash!

2. Insisting that shared kitchen countertops be wiped down multiple times a day.

In my experience, the most challenging part of going gluten free for celiac disease avoiding cross contamination. People with celiac disease can get sick from a crumb of wheat or someone using the same plate or utensils to make a gluten-filled and gluten free meal. As a result, if someone with celiac disease is using a kitchen that also contains gluten, cleanliness is a super important ground rule to set.

Personally, I live alone in my own studio apartment during the school year, but when I’m at home for the summer, my parents’ kitchen does have gluten. I feel bad at times that my family has to change their routine and be extra vigilant every time they pour gluten-filled cereal or make a sandwich on regular bread. However, I try to remind myself that it isn’t my choice to need a gluten free environment; it’s a medical requirement. And if you have celiac disease or another medical reason to need a gluten free diet, the same can be said about you.

3. Spending five to ten extra minutes talking to a restaurant server or chef every time you eat out.

I love eating out gluten free and there are many safe gluten free restaurants to choose from nowadays. However, when you have celiac disease, talking to your waitress or asking to speak to the chef is a regular requirement when eating out. Even if I’ve eaten at a restaurant safely several times before, I always explain to my waiter that I have celiac disease and need a gluten free meal free of cross contamination. Sometimes I even ask to speak to the chef or restaurant manager if the waiter doesn’t seem to understand what a “gluten free diet” really is.

Some celiacs eve use special restaurant cards that explain the basics of celiac disease and the gluten free diet. These can be especially helpful if you’re traveling abroad. No matter how you explain your dietary limitations, however, it can take time...and this process feels one thousand times less stressful when your dining companions understand how important this conversation is to your own health and personal safety.

4. Insisting that there are separate condiment jars, toasters, etc.

When you first learn that you have celiac disease, you might not expect to have to buy your own toaster or keep your own gluten free labeled peanut butter jar or butter container. However, cross contamination can cause serious health issues in people with celiac disease, which means that precautions like these are often necessary when you’re sharing a kitchen with gluten-eaters.

How far you take the “separate gluten free” theme in your kitchen depends on your own comfort level and your family’s understanding of cross contamination. For example, some celiacs also have their own separate pots, pans and utensils. Personally, I share most cooking equipment with the rest of my family, but it’s always cleaned thoroughly and doesn’t have any scratches where gluten could hide. To learn more about how to set up a safe gluten-and-gluten-free kitchen, check out my post here.

Eating a gluten free diet while living with people who eat gluten can be challenging and requires a lot of open communication and compromises. However, your health should come first, and your loved ones or roommates should hopefully understand that.

5. Turning down offered food, even when someone claims it is “gluten free.”

Just picture this: you’re at a neighborhood BBQ, armed with your own safe gluten free food. Then, a kind neighbor surprises you: she made gluten free brownies with you in mind! However, the more you talk to her, the more you realize that she doesn’t understand how sensitive celiacs are to cross contamination. What do you do?

As awkward as it feels, I often end up politely turning down the food in these kinds of situations. When I can’t be sure that the baking mix, spices, cooking utensils, etc. someone used in a “gluten free” dish are actually celiac safe, being polite isn’t worth getting glutened and feeling sick for at least a week. I’m sure that this is frustrating to some people, and they may think I’m overly paranoid or a picky eater...but I shouldn’t have to apologize for looking out for my health, and you shouldn’t either.

(Source)

6. Extensively researching any new restaurants or places you’re visiting.

After I learned I have celiac disease, going out to eat became a lot more complicated. No longer could I just wander around town and eat at whatever restaurant sounded good. Now, I often relied on research done before I even left the house.

It can definitely feel frustrating to lose some of the spontaneity and flexibility you used to enjoy. Friends and family might also struggle with you not being able to “go with the flow” like you used to. However, if you explain that researching gluten free options ahead of time makes your trip a lot less stressful and more enjoyable in the long run, I’m sure most companions will appreciate your extra work.

Plus, you can try to make a list of several options for gluten free food that way you can still have some in-the-moment freedom with choosing. Beyond handy-dandy Google, the Find Me Gluten Free app (and website) is my favorite research tool.

7. Turning down some social invitations.

One of the “celiac symptoms” I wish my doctor had warned me about after my diagnosis is the isolation that can result from dietary restrictions. Like or not, many social activities - especially in college or work - involve food.

When you can’t eat the free pizza or your co-worker’s birthday cake like everyone else, social events can feel a little awkward and even less enjoyable at times. As a result, you may - for better or worse - find yourself turning down social invitations where you know there will be tons of food and little people or activities you actually enjoy spending time with or on.

(Source)

I certainly don’t recommend avoiding every single social event that involves gluten. I’ve gone to countless parties where I can’t eat a thing, and by eating ahead of time, bringing my own food or just enjoying the company instead of the food, I’ve still had a blast. However, you also shouldn’t feel guilty for saying “no” every once in awhile, whether it’s because of celiac disease complications or other reasons.

8. Spending extra money on particular brands of beauty or hygiene products.

Some celiacs are fine using any hygiene products they find in their closet; others, like me, prefer using only gluten free products, especially if they run the risk of being accidentally ingested (as with lipstick and face wash). If you fall in the latter group, you might find yourself spending more money than you used to on beauty and hygiene products. That’s often just the reality of using high quality, allergy friendly makeup or cleansers.

Like with food, there are ways you can save money on gluten free beauty products. Although I used to use Cleure (and still love their products), I eventually found gluten free shampoo and conditioner for a fraction of the cost on Amazon. If you do splurge on gluten free hygiene products, though, know that doesn’t automatically make you “high maintenance” or “picky.” You’re doing what you feel you need to do in order to live safely with celiac disease...and as long as you have room in your budget for these extra costs, that peace of mind is definitely priceless.

9. Getting upset over little things like not being able to eat the cake at your work’s office party.

It happens. You might go weeks, months or even years eating gluten free with no problem...and then you’re having a bad day, you walk by your old favorite bagel place or you just wake up craving a “real” slice of pizza. And it hurts.

When those kind of moments happen, I encourage you to embrace those emotions and let yourself cry if you need to. As I explain here, you might feel “silly” for crying over a sandwich or pasta salad, but you’re crying about much more than just food. Most likely, you’re really upset about losing the freedom to eat whatever you want, not to mention the less complicated lifestyle you probably once had.

Times like these are when having a solid support system who understands (or at least tries to) can make a huge difference. I always feel fortunate that my mom went gluten free with me. Although she doesn’t have celiac disease, my mom’s gluten intolerance means she can understand the social isolation, cravings and sad days that can come from dietary restrictions...as well as the joy I feel when I find a new gluten free food or recipe I love!

10. Often preferring to eat from your “safe list” of foods or restaurants instead of trying somewhere new.

It’s true that there appear to be more gluten free options than ever, whether you’re walking around the grocery store or looking for a nearby restaurant to dine at. However, “gluten free” unfortunately does not mean “celiac safe,” and many restaurants’ gluten free options are cross contaminated and therefore not appropriate for people with celiac disease.

As a result, eating out gluten free can honestly feel a little scary. Even though we don’t go into anaphylactic shock like someone with food allergies, eating gluten can majorly hurt people with celiac disease. Personally, I experience stomach issues, extreme fatigue, insomnia, brain fog and several other symptoms for at least a week after being glutened.

So once I do find a restaurant that can do gluten free right, I often like to stick to that restaurant instead of trying new places, and I’ve heard from many other celiacs that they feel the same way. This doesn’t make us “boring” eaters or mean that we’ll never ever try new places; it’s just a natural reaction to finding a safe gluten free haven in a world full of gluten.

11. Asking for help with simple things when you’re glutened.

The last “high maintenance” trait I’m talking about today refers to the time during which people with celiac are probably the most “demanding”: when we’ve been glutened.

Like I explained in the point above, accidentally ingesting gluten can cause major problems in people with celiac disease. Some celiacs even have to go to the hospital to receive fluids or other care after they’ve been glutened.

So when a dietary mistake does happen, we’ll probably need even more help than usual, whether it’s with small things like warming up some gluten free soup or bigger chores like doing the laundry or grocery shopping. It can be easy to feel “lazy” or “stupid” when you’re glutened and your brain and body isn’t functioning properly. However, feeling guilty about asking for help won’t make you heal any faster...and I can say from personal experience that many family members and friends will do anything that can to help you feel better.

(Source)

And once you do recover from being glutened, nothing says “thank you” more sweetly than baking some GF goodies for the friends and family who gave you a helping hand!

The Bottom Line

Even though it’s been five years since I received my celiac disease diagnosis, I still sometimes find myself apologizing for the quirks celiac disease gives me. I apologize to travel companions for always packing a ton of food; I apologize to friends for limiting our restaurant choices; sometimes I even find myself apologizing to waiters for my “complex” order.

This Celiac Awareness Month, though, I’m challenging myself to stop apologizing for traits or factors that are out of my control. If you find yourself saying “I’m sorry” too often for celiac-traits traits, I hope you join me on this challenge as well. After all, we did not choose to have celiac disease, and we did not choose to need to eat a gluten free diet. Not to mention that celiac disease has actually given me several hidden blessings, and I’m guessing most celiacs can say the same thing.

So this May, let’s change the mindset around celiac disease (and other chronic illnesses) from “high maintenance” to “worth the work.” Because it’s worth the work of being gluten free when it lets us thrive with celiac disease...and, chronic illness or not, we’re worth the work others might have to do to have us in their lives.

Do you ever find yourself apologizing or feeling “high maintenance” for celiac-related obligations? Or how do you view your chronic disease with a positive mindset? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments!

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