You can't have Thanksgiving without Jet-Puffed mini marshmellows

The other week I was in the not so Wal-Mart sized sister store Asda searching aisle to aisle for marshmallows, the key ingredient to the all American summer time snack ‘smores. If you can even believe this, none of the Brits I know have had 'smores. Having been a chubby little camping girl scout I considered this a MAJOR crime)! As I impatiently marched down every single aisle in the entire store I began to have flashbacks of doing this same thing around this time last year…

 It was a week before Thanksgiving and I decided to have a huge Thanksgiving Day dinner at my little English cottage since I wouldn’t be able to make it home for my favorite All- American stuff your face till it hurts holiday. I invited all our friends and family and told them to expect a tasty USA turkey day! Since I had 20 people coming over to experience their first Thanksgiving I had to make sure everything was absolutely perfect with all the traditional dishes and pies. And no Thanksgiving dinner was complete without Jet-Puffed mini marshmallows.

However, when I went to do my big turkey shop I searched the store high and low scouring for any sign of white mini marshmallows. Not only does the UK not carry Kraft Jet- Puffed mini marshmallows, I couldn’t even find no name minis anywhere. The only thing Asda sold were strawberry flavored pink and white big marshmallows. That was it! That was the only option! And this just would not do. This could possibly ruin the perfect first Thanksgiving experience. So to the Internet I went in search of my mini marshmallows.

I eventually found a UK site called ‘American Foods in the UK’ which did not have a single bag of Kraft Jet-Puffed mini marshmallows but claimed to sell the All-American brand "Becky’s American Mini Marshmallows". Now I have never heard of ‘Becky’s’ but I needed those marshmallows so bad I was willing to get any as long as they were mini (and if they were American it could possibly make my Thanksgiving even more authentic).

35 pounds (or 50 dollars) later I was staring at 4 bags of jumbo marshmallows with arabic writing made somewhere in Europe! And to make matters worse Andy walked through the door with my turkey and 3 bags of British mini marshmallows costing a grand total of 3 pounds! Oops  

The Alf

In March Andy and I had a very furry, very cuddly, and very slobbery baby boy named Alfie. He keeps me busy vacuuming up tumble weeds of fur, replacing chewed up valuables, chasing him chasing children, and vacuuming up more tri colored fur balls. But, like all new parents say, I can’t imagine life without my little bundle of joy! This is why, when talking to my sister about their puppy, Molly, I had some major health concerns for my little boy. She told me how Molly was going to the vet every other week and sometimes every week to fix a little problem she was having with some glands, which the doctor thought might be due to her constant swimming. As Samantha is telling me about Molly’s little issue and how if not fixed can lead to extreme discomfort for the pup or even an infection leading to doggy antibiotic, images of Alfie’s nightly swim in Poole harbor kept playing over and over again in my head making me increasingly worried for his health. I told Sam I needed to get off skype ASAP and get my pooch to the vet, but being the amazing sister she is she told me step by step how we can fix the problem at home, save my precious pennies, and make Alfie a happy healthy little man.

            Naturally as soon as I was off skype, having had my tutorial from Samantha on how her fiancé, Ryan, “fixes” Molly’s tiny issue, I went running to Andy proclaiming we must, immediately, before it gets any worse, before Alfie dies of discomfort, squeeze his BUTT!!!” And to my total surprise Andy was not quite as eager as I thought he would be. So I told him all about Molly and how her anal glands become so full (and smelly) that she has to have them emptied every week. I expressed my urgent concern that Andy must do this right away, because after all he is our baby!

            After explaining how it is done and Andy grimacing not believing there was such a thing or Ryan would dare get that personal with his dog, we youtubed it. And sure enough, in cyber space, there waiting, was an extremely graphic video tutorial on how to empty your dog’s anal glands. After quite a lot of convincing (and a little nagging) I persuaded Andy it is very incredibly necessary he get his hand gloved and give Alfie a little massage. And to the backyard we went: lube, gloves, and dog.

It was a very educational Saturday afternoon and I learned Alfie was not like Molly and his glands were A OK and completely empty. However, Alfie now looks at his Dad with a whole different set of loving eyes!