Pink Shirts, Singing Crocodiles, and Other Necessary Routines

We arrived at the table already halfway into the weather report, which is often how Lunch begins: not with a formal opening, but with someone worrying about someone else’s temperature. Rosii was worried about the Mayor, and fairly so. While Brazil was sitting at a dramatic 10 degrees, the Mayor announced that his corner of France was at 34 degrees and marching confidently toward 39, then 40, before apparently collapsing into “winter” at 24 degrees. We accepted this information with the seriousness it deserved, which is to say: mild concern, cultural confusion, and a strong desire to exchange climates by courier.

Nathalie joined from Seoul for what quietly became an important edition of Lunch. It was her last Lunch broadcast from South Korea before her move westward, and the Mayor immediately declared a strategic crisis. Brida had lost its Asian presence. The one in Australia had fallen off the planet, Nathalie was leaving Seoul, and suddenly the map looked very unbalanced. We all understood the seriousness of this, even while laughing. Some departures are not dramatic at the table. They simply sit there beside the coffee.

Then Nathalie noticed the Mayor’s pink shirt.

This was not a small compliment. This was historical healing. The Mayor told us the traumatic tale of young Mayor in 1970s Australia, wearing checked flares and a pink shirt open in the style of the era, only to discover at an all-boys school that pink was not a colour one wore without consequences. He could not get home fast enough. Decades later, after what sounded like emotional rehabilitation, brother-in-law intervention, and possibly textile therapy, the pink shirt had returned. Rosii and Nathalie both agreed: pink suited him. The Mayor absorbed this like a man receiving rare diplomatic recognition.

From there, we moved into routines. Nathalie said she does not really have one fixed routine, but sport helps her feel better: running, cycling, gymnastics, or exercise early in the morning. Rosii’s routine was fuller: teaching an English class on Monday at 7 a.m., Pilates on Tuesday and Friday, stretching on Monday and Wednesday nights, more Pilates on Friday evening, and work filling the spaces in between. For her, those hours of movement are not just exercise. They are the hour where she takes care of herself.

Fruitloop chose coffee in peace and quiet. No questions. No speaking. Just coffee. Preferably in her warm office where the sun comes in, unless she can drink it in bed without being disturbed, which is apparently a rare luxury in family life.

And this opened the bigger conversation: the routines we choose, and the routines that choose us.

Rosii spoke about women she knows who are teachers, wives, mothers, house managers, and still expected to function like “super girls.” She remembered colleagues at public school who carried work, children, home, and responsibility all at once. The Mayor connected this to his 89-year-old mother, who keeps reminding him that women do not only have jobs at work. They also have jobs at home. Cooking, mothering, washing, planning, and climbing laundry mountains. He called her a feminist activist, and we silently promoted her to the Lunch Advisory Council.

Fruitloop added the story of her friend with three children, sport schedules, extra classes, work travel, and a husband who helps but also disappears to farms and game ranches during hunting season. Rosii recognised the same pattern in a coordinator with three daughters in three different life stages: child, teenager, and young adult. We all paused around the same truth: some people’s routines are not routines. They are logistical miracles.

Rosii then named the routine that chose her: work courses, scripts, videos, deadlines, and the difficulty of finding people to participate. She did not choose to make work videos. The job chose it for her. Nathalie said household work chose her, too. She hates it, but still feels obliged to keep the house clean before beginning other activities. Fruitloop’s version was everyone saying, “I’m hungry.” The Mayor, naturally, said his unavoidable routine was getting up and putting on the pink shirt before the cats could begin their chaos.

When the day begins badly, Rosii brings herself back during her commute. Her radio is broken, so she speaks positive sentences to herself while driving: I am positive. I am courageous. I am productive. Today will be good. The Mayor became slightly concerned because she demonstrated the driving motion with her eyes closed, and we briefly imagined São Paulo drivers being warned about a woman chanting affirmations through traffic. Rosii clarified: she does not sing. She talks to herself. This did not entirely reduce the Mayor’s concern.

Nathalie offered a more philosophical approach. In the past, when a day became negative, she only wanted to go to bed and trust that the next day would be better. Now she tries to listen to life. Perhaps losing something, missing something, or being delayed may protect you from another path. She tries to find the positive signal inside the negative event. Not everything has an explanation, but sometimes life gives clues.

Fruitloop’s bad morning was practical: fluish, tired, no water, and unable to wash her hair. In South Africa, this is not a small matter. She had storage containers, buckets, and a neighbourhood water tank if necessary, but no water from the tap. The Mayor asked the dangerous toilet question. Fruitloop explained the bucket system. We moved on quickly, with dignity only slightly damaged.

Then came the question: when does a good routine become too strict?

Nathalie said it becomes dangerous when it turns into dependence or obsession, especially with exercise. If missing one day feels catastrophic, the routine has become restrictive. Fruitloop agreed, mentioning runners and rugby players whose whole identities can be built around one thing. The Mayor widened the idea: work itself is a routine, and retirement can be frightening when people have not prepared for life outside that structure. Rosii brought it back to balance: job, family, social life, hobbies, and the need not to become only one thing.

By then, we had earned the Fruit Loopy questions.

First: what if your alarm clock became a friendly singing crocodile that only stopped when you did ten jumping jacks?

Rosii rejected this immediately. She likes to wake in silence. A singing crocodile was not welcome. Nathalie thought it might be funny and motivating, but only if she were alone. She had recently seen a Korean woman exercising while waiting for transport, because, as Nathalie explained, Koreans cannot wait while doing nothing. Fruitloop admitted that on some mornings the crocodile might help, but on tired mornings she would throw it over the wall into the church grounds. The Mayor, who does not use an alarm clock, could not quite enter the scenario. He chose instead to remain Sleeping Beauty in a pink shirt.

Then came the doctor’s prescription: for more balance, we must schedule a 15-minute tea party with a royal penguin.

Nathalie saw the penguin as therapy. A neutral listener. Someone outside work, outside the environment, who would keep your worries safe and not repeat them. Rosii remembered her colleague Vivi, whose phone rings at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. to remind her to thank God. Rosii liked the idea of stopping during the day, even for five minutes, to breathe, reflect, and become lighter.

The Mayor, however, rescued the penguin from therapy and took him to London. In the Mayor’s version, we were at the Ritz or the Savoy having afternoon tea with Oscar Wilde the Penguin, discussing gossip, scandal, literature, and society. Fifteen minutes would never be enough. Two hours at least. Fruitloop said she would probably complain to the penguin about toys, water, hair, and dishes, depending on the day. And we all agreed that sometimes complaining to a penguin is exactly the kind of balance a person needs.

By the end, the Mayor had received two compliments about his pink shirt, Nathalie had marked her final Seoul Lunch for now, Rosii had become one of the women governing the Mayor’s life, and Fruitloop had survived flu, no water, and the threat of crocodile aerobics.

Maybe that is what routine really is. Not just the things we repeat, but the small ways we return to ourselves: coffee in silence, Pilates after a long day, affirmations in traffic, a clean house, a pink shirt, a bucket of emergency water, or a royal penguin who listens without judgement.

And maybe we are all each other’s penguins sometimes.

Not for fifteen minutes.

For as long as the table needs.