Pork Chops and What Not

I'll start with the what not - a polite way of saying - I'm going to grumble. 

Does anyone else hate two factor authentication as much as I do? First of all - how the heck do so many entities know I own an ipad? They keep sending the codes to it - except it sits in a drawer in my nightstand.  Not optimal and a dang scary thing that so many people know so much about me. Then we have the text message - Why does every business in the world assume that ALL of us sit with our phones in our laps?  If I'm home working why in the name of all that is holy would I be on my cell phone?  And... when I travel out of the country - I don't easily get texts on my cell phone. I just want to throttle the people who think this is safer - what happened to answer a personal question? Not many people know who my pet was when I was six or the make and model of first car I bought - or what car I learned to drive in (heck I'm lucky I remember lol) - Just so frustrating - 

All right - rant over - next thing:  Pork Chops - do you like pork chops? To celebrate finishing up Just One Family a few days early, I went to dinner at a fancy steak house I'd never been to and my friend said - order the pork chop. I like pork chops so I thought - why not. HOLY MOLY. It's not A porkchop -it's Three! Like a roast - wow. And it's caramelized - I'd never heard of caramelized pork before - but YUM! 

Of course, I started with a chocolate martini - try them everywhere that serves them. This one was REALLY different from most places (no half and half) and seriously delicious. Of course it helped that forewarned them not to use more than a 1/2 oz of vodka as anything more than that and I don't like them. (yeah- I actually don't like the taste of any hard liquor lol) .  Then we had the seafood stuffed mushrooms. I'm sorry to report I forgot to take a photo until we'd eaten all and there was only half of one left - but so very good. Then came the pork chop - as you can see they have already cut it up for us. They separate the loin, from the rib and the eyelash - who knew there was a part of a porkchop called an eyelash LOL. Even the creamed spinach I ordered was delicious! (sorry no photo of that but it looked like any other creamed spinach!) 

Needless to say - I ate very little of the pork chop because it was so much food - I have had two more meals from it and there's still a ton of it in the fridge. Though I am running out of the spinach. I suspect I may have two more pork meals but only one spinach left! 

Next we move into romance mode. There was a couple beside us (behind my friend) who I hadn't really paid any attention to. At one point I realized all the two top tables were along that wall and the diners all faced each other - except these two. The man had moved his chair to the side so that he was closer to the woman. Fair enough. I assumed, they must be dating.

Now we move on to dessert. I love bread pudding, but was a bit hesitant about the chocolate chips in this - those are actually not my favorite thing in anything but a chocolate chip cookie. But, the homemade marshmallow intrigued me. Especially after having had homemade marshmallow that a write friend made a short while back (think I mentioned them here).  I assumed it was a little ordinary sized marshmallow. BOY, was I wrong. LOL.  It was as big as the rest of the dessert - and the tastiest part. My friend was more exotic in her interest and ordered something flambéed. I honestly don't think I've ever had a waiter fire up a dessert table side before. It was fun to watch. And according to my friend, the final product poured over vanilla ice cream was to die for! 

Isn't that a crazy huge marshmallow?  So, now that we're both stuffed to the proverbial gills, I notice that couple again. This time, they're leaning in so close, that their noses are almost touching and every sentence was punctuated with a kiss. Oh, and both had their elbows on the table, (yeah my grandmother was probably rolling over in her grave) but he had both her hands clasped in both of his as they spoke and kissed. 

I casually mentioned to my friend, those two must be dating, nobody married is that cutesy in public. My friend thought about it and asked - is there a wedding ring. Now I should add, the couple were probably in their forties. Moving along, I peeked over and saw a diamond on her left hand. I thought, oh, well, if they were engaged that would be the same. So I looked again (trying really hard not to stare) and thought well I'll be, there's a wedding ring too. All right. Newlyweds will work too. Then the cynic in me crept up (romance author gods forgive me) and I said to my friend, they're either newlyweds or having an affair. 

Now in my defense, by now we've gone from cooing conversation with pecks on the lips to both hands on either side of the other person's face and murmuring more sweet nothings. Now curiosity was getting the better of us, so I pulled over their waiter and asked if he knew what was going on... drum roll please... I was shocked. They were there celebrating their sixth wedding anniversary.  Cynic has now been promptly put in her place!  I will tell you this, those images will forever come to mind when I'm writing future books!  And anyone who says the real world isn't as lovely dovey as my characters - oh yes it can be! 

which brings me to books - Just One Mistake releases tomorrow. Some of you will get it from vendors tonight. If others don't want to wait, you can get it right now, this very minute, direct from my website. 

And, next week when I get family back from my editor, I'll share a little snippet with you! 

​Until then - take care!