I don’t remember when I first realized that the word “routine” didn’t have a negative connotation for most people. But I know it must have been a shock. I grew up with a mother who never drove home the same way twice because “who knows what you might discover down a different street?” In our house “routine” was a little bit of a dirty word; it was something necessary but distasteful, like poop or taxes. I can remember her tone as she would groan, “Back to the routine,” at the end of every school vacation.