20th Century Food Crimes, Cont. - Friday, First Period [07/21].

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Well," Summer said, standing at the front of the class all by her lonesome, unless you counted the koala clinging to her like an adorable furry backpack right now, "as you can see, my coteacher is currently indisposed as a cute marsupial at the moment--"

Had Stark been a koala when they left Paintball yesterday. No. No he had not been. Had he turned into one pretty much at the worst time imaginable once they'd gotten to her place to clean up after paintball? Yes. Yes, of course he did. And was Summer still mad about it?

Actually, no, it was annoying and irritating at the time, sure, but now she was just sort of resigned to her fate of koala-sitting once again, but don't think she wasn't considering just orphan-dropping him on front of the fire station again at some point, dammit!

"--one that I tried to leave at home but was clearly not having any of it, so if he changes back to normal in the middle of class, please know that I tried to spare everyone from that particular fate, and cannot be held accountable. Maybe the shirt will help, I don't know, we can only hope."

Because, oh, yeah, sidenote, the koala was sporting a pretty sweet Hawaiian shirt at the moment, too. As both back-up in the event of a mid-class transformation and because, look, when you had the chance to put a koala in a cute Hawaiian shirt, you just did it, okay?

"Now," she continued, "clearly, we focus a lot on American vintage recipes in this class, mostly because that's taking from my own culture and upbringing, but when your co-teacher turns into a strictly Australian marsupial, I felt I could stand to do a little digging and see what vintage Australian recipes I could find for us to consider. For a country notoriously founded as a place for Britain to send there criminals, are their 20th century indulgences crimes against cul-manity? Or do they pale in comparison to what the bright march of American exceptionalism has to offer? Let's find out!

"This week, we'll be trying an Australian beer cake, some toffees that are literally given the very descriptive title of 'stickjaw,' and then finally, I recreated two cakes featured in Women's Weekly at some point in its history: one of them a duck and one of them that involves gelatin, so of course I had to do it.

"And then I realized they were all desserts, so we also got some apricot chicken, which, really, when you get right down to it? Is pretty weird for something that seems to work and is apparently a big thing down there, if Google is to be believed."

Movie night, Friday

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"I should probably confess that I haven't seen many recent films," Jon started. "But this one has a lot of stars in it, and it's got good reviews, and I remember hearing about it a lot, so hopefully it's good."

He gestured at the table nearby. "Also there's still popcorn. And tea and sodas. So...enjoy, I suppose."

Getting Out of Scrapes - Fast, Friday

[suitably_heroic]

"Today's scrape is a classic," Atton said, leaning casually against a slot machine. "It's night. You've just spent the past few hours gambling. And maybe - just maybe - you weren't completely honest with your cards. It can happen, right? Mistakes, blah blah."

He shrugged one shoulder.

"But the mobbed up casino figured it out," he said. "Now you can make a scene and bail the old-fashioned way, or you can talk them out of it, or maybe even into another wager. Who knows?"

At the poker table just feet away, a woman looked up, frightened, at the two heavies and the one well-dressed guy making their way towards it.

"Take your seat," he said. "Let's play."

Library - Friday

[onlyajones]

Jo was a little weary as she turned up to the library, not sure what to expect when she turned up for her shift that day however unlike last week the shelves all seemed to be where they were supposed to be. What was unusual was that there seemed to be classical music playing and she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, but she found that she didn’t mind too much as she went about returning the books that she needed to put away. In fact she found the music rather comforting.