Hurrah for cookie-eating small children with snow shovels

It's no great secret that my lower back might as well have been bestowed upon me by Loki himself.

Anything can send me in wincing in agony. Moving the wrong way as I walk, heavy lifting (no, cuddling Beanie does not count as heavy lifting), even sitting on the wrong type of fabric can cause great shooting pains down my spine and render me almost immobile.

How did I originally hurt myself? Gr. IX Phys Ed and the absolutely *lovely* teacher we had...heck, any 40-something woman with sun-damaged skin a bad orange dye job (I think she was going for blonde) who gloats about wearing her nine year-old daughter's skirts (which didn't fit the mother in the least) really does have the necessary psychological fortitude to be put in an authoritarian position over students.

So when it comes to snow shovelling, I rely upon the kindess others. Some I know (like the exbf and my father) and others I don't...like the mystery snowshoveller who cleans my driveway so incredibly pristinely before I get in from work. In my old neighbourhood, teenaged boys with shovels would show up expecting $10-20 to move your snow. They'd do a wretched job of it, and I'd wind up getting the exbf in to do it properly.

But in my new neighbourhood...

Christmas week-ish we had a gloriously amazing series of snowfalls. Environment Canada christened it "snowmaggedon" -- highly melodramatic, I know. But it was a highly melodramatic amount within a short period of time (most of which has since melted). Out I popped to survey what Ullr himself deemed necessary to drop on my doorstep, path and driveway. Back in I popped, hoping the snow really wasn't there. A short while later, the doorbell rang.

Two boys, vaguely recognisable as being from the neighbourhood, bundled in their winter warmies, toting shovels larger than they themselves asked if I wanted to be dug out.

"But I don't have any cash."

"That's okay, we want to do it."

Apparently these boys were very, very bored.

"Okay...do you want cookies instead?"

"Oh wow! Yes, please!"

Good gawd...and they say "please" without their mothers being present.

Needless to say, as they shovelled I packed a dozen cookies for each of them. Afterwards, I surveyed my small patch of asphalt. My word...it looked as if a snowblower had done it.

A few days later, after the next dump, I poked my nose out in much the same fashion. This time the boys saw me and came running over to see if I needed to be dug out again.

And again, they did it for a dozen cookies each...with delivered commentary from their families as to how much they liked the first load.

So now, I try and keep three dozen cookies on hand, in case the snows return, and with them cookie-eating small children with snow shovels.

Oatmeal Cookies
Yield 3 dozen, depending upon the generosity of your cookie spoon

112g butter
110g brown sugar
100g granulated sugar
0.5 tsp salt
0.75 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs
0.5 tsp vanilla
175g ap flour
0.5t cinnamon
115 g rolled oats

Preheat oven to 170C/350F.

Cream together sugars, salt and butter; add eggs and vanilla and stir well.

Sift together flour, bicarb and cinnamon, then fold with the oats into the wet mixture. Drop by onto prepared cookie sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

cheers!
jasmine