Routine - comfortable or boring?

Having a routine has such a smelly reputation. People who used to be attached to their routines were pegged as reliable, dependable, predictable and it was a good thing. People who follow their routines now get pegged as boring, unimaginative, and gasp, predictable. No, actually they go further than that, they get pegged as crazy, nuttier than a shithouse rat. Inevitably when the words will whisper out: OCD – obsessive/compulsive disorder…

I’ve noticed over the last few years we make things either catastrophic (I hate that soup, I could kill that guy, it’s a disaster) or pathological (he must have xxx syndrome, yyy disorder, zzz genetics). We have no in between and we’re thankful when our lives careen somewhere in the middle.

It kind of pisses me off frankly. Why can’t people have their routines? It brings comfort to some.
I have a friend or two who like their routines – or have their thing. And they have to be quiet about it. One eats the same salad everyday, from the same place. They recognize her voice on the phone now when she calls to pre-order it. Another crosses the street only at crosswalks – no jaywalking – now it seems quite sensible given that she was hit as a child running out into the street…but no matter how quiet the street, she’ll wander the extra way up the sidewalk to get to the other side. And me…I run home from work and I run home the same way every time. It may seem boring, routine, but I time it. And then I can see if I’m getting stronger and faster or older and slower. You may guess which way I’m starting to lean on that one…

My sudden defense of routine behaviour is also a sign of age - another step on the path to old fartedness, along with my sudden fascination with birdwatching and lack of interest in bars and nightclubs - and it's also just pure defensiveness. I noticed during my staycation this summer that I have my places, my things, my ways. I have two cups of tea with breakfast and it’s not over til I do. By 11am my brain and stomach are working in league to push me to the coffee maker. And it has to be the same kind (Kicking Horse coffee – the Kick Ass strong blend and no I don’t get paid anything to say that). Steve and I will wander on a hot afternoon (although this July we’ve been waiting for a hot afternoon) up to the Dairy Queen about 20 minutes up the road from our place (which is complete justification especially with the return trip) and we’ll sit and watch the world pass by on the sloping road down into the valley that overlooks the city. Not the best ice cream, but I’ve had worse. And the setting isn’t bad.

Twenty years ago my gang of friends went to a middle eastern restaurant in the middle east of Toronto (east, but not as far east as the city now wanders – a friend’s friend said that once) – we went there a lot. Okay we went there so much we’re fairly sure we paid for the family to move to the other end of the droopy strip mall and expand two store widths. We spent all our time there. We were university students and the coffee was good and the food was even better. And the family that owned the joint came to know us all by name.

The restaurant is still there – though the family has moved on (I believe they sold it to a couple of their cooks), and so has the old gang of friends. I don’t see them anymore. And I stopped going there until a few years ago. The family must have given the cooks all the recipes – the hummus, the baba ghanoush, the tabouleh, the labaneh, all from scratch, all still killer good.

My Mum, who can never remember the names of the dips always sits down, looks at me with excitement and says, “so, are we going to have all the bits in the middle?” And I don’t know why but we order all the bits in the middle (the dips), then we order chicken kabob sandwiches, or the lovely lamb kabob sandwich – even though their beef shawarma looks fantastic. And we don't stop eating until we're hurting...the tahini and onions and tomatoes and parsley all melding together with the meat…the pita soft, warm and fresh...all wrapped in a foil diaper. The diaper I learned very early in my middle eastern eating career, should never, ever be removed without putting one on the outside of your pants. Or you’ll be sorry. I’ve warned and wagged my finger at newbies and watched them get drenched in a combo of tahini, meat juice and tomatoes.

They even have mahalabia – which I don’t eat often, I just love saying it. Ma – ha – la – bia…

So that was our routine – Two three four times a week we’d all pull up in our assorted cars and chow down. So now you know why I have to run.

Now here’s the best part. We’d grab a table – we’d order our bits in the middle and the waitress would bring divine crunchiness on a plate: pickled turnips and hot peppers. We’d dive in and have to ask for more – in fact they just started bringing us two plates.

We went to the restaurant a few weeks ago – Mum, Steve and I – during a shopping day. And it had been so long that I actually forgot about the turnips. And when they showed up – I grinned and said…oh…yeah. And we chomped down. Crunchy, tart, beautiful. I had to figure out how these were made – so when we got home I dug online and into some books here (my cookbooks now have their own home on bookshelves in the bedroom – not my favourite place but better than on top of our cupboards where they got both greasy and threatened to collapse the hardwood cupboards) I morphed a few recipes into one. And it was close...

It was easy and quick. And so was the eating a week later. Steve kept going to the fridge and forking a few down. They’re gone now. But I’m definitely going to make them again. And again. And again. Like a routine - comforting and rooting us to our joys...

Pickled Turnips – adapted from a few sources (see my updated recipe - the restaurant was generous enough to share it with me)

2 lbs turnips
1 raw beet
½ lemon
1 ½ heaped tbsp salt
6 cups water

Wash the turnips and the beet. Don’t peel. Slice the turnips and the beetroot about ¼ “ thick. Sprinkle the beet slices with the juice from the lemon and then lay them in the bottom of a jar (I sterilized the jar). Put the turnip in on top of the beet and pack them in. Add the salt to the water and stir then fill the jar. Seal and keep cool for about four or five days.

The beets slowly colour the turnips a beautiful pink.
The recipes call for waiting a week – but we found them a little on the soggy side by waiting that long. And I put them in the fridge once we’d opened them.

What summer feels like in this house

I put the duvet away. We’ve turned the ceiling fan on in the bedroom. The bay windows in the kitchen stay open all the time to catch the breeze in the alley. The bay window overlooks a brick wall, but lets in light. The old doors all stick a little. Dampness rises from the old floor boards. There is thermal lag here – the bricks hold on to their winter cold for a long time and this year into July, but slowly it’s warming up in here. The house plants have escaped to the deck full time. The earth has tilted enough to take the sun’s rays out of our living room. They’ll fill the room come December when the earth tilts back. The basement bathroom is now earning its nickname: the swamp. I washed the tile floor about an hour ago, it might be dry by the end of the week. And I fight an ongoing battle with moldy grout.

Many years ago my friend’s little daughter was in the bathroom, on the toilet, deep in thought. This was her first visit to this house.

It was built in her great grandmother’s era, when flappers were the rage, when the world was living the heady champagne daze before economic collapse, actually in the same years my mother was born. It has triple brick walls, made in the valley just to the west of us. It has old casement windows that complain with the age of many winters, and old oak floors – narrow bands of wood so worn you can see the basement light in some sections. But it feels safe and solid and like home – even though we rent. We love this place.

As she did her business, Kayla considered everything around her. She made her pronouncement: “Mummy? I ike (no l’s yet) Auntie Nicky’s cottage.”

Kayla went outside to play. Her Mum told me what she’d said. A cottage? How cool is that? Little ones like that don’t lie (she soon told me my teeth were yellow). But while she was in my good books, I glowed, because this is like a cottage - it has the spirit of peace that a cottage has.

And in the cool, slow rise from spring, the poppies and peonies have exploded in their beauty and wildness, the roses quickly coming in to take their place, the astounding clematis has crawled up the deck again covering it in purple, and the marshmallows have flowered like a bright laugh. And when I hear the trees rustle with wind and I sit here sipping my morning coffee at the desk by the door looking out over the deck, and I see so many colours of green rising in their lushness, cushioning our presence in a big city, I feel pretty lucky. Grout be damned.

Peony picture from wikipedia.