long black at Shortlist

[The Shortlist café at 06:58]
[The Shortlist at 06:58]

OK, I was early. I’m always early.

But at 06:58 it didn’t look like The Shortlist was going to achieve its 07:00 opening time promise. Daiskmeliadorn had suggested this location for our breakfast meeting as she wanted to try it out, and I set the 07:00 meeting time so I would be able to get back to work before my boss arrives.

Well, within moments we went from a famine to a feast. I turned around and saw daiskmeliadorn cycling up the road, just as the café opened up. They only had a few stools and small tables to put outside, so they were ready to serve us by the time daiskmeliadorn had chained up her bike.

The decor was typical for this area: old second-hand mismatched furniture and crockery. Recycled building materials evident everywhere. The music was upbeat and jazzy (a little too upbeat and a little too jazzy for my liking), and the service was friendly (in a laid back, off hand, inner city sort of way) and fast.

[Long black at The Shortlist]
[long black at The Shortlist]

I had a long black, as usual, and daiskmeliadorn had sourdough toast with mandarin jam and a latte. Her toast looked quite good and my coffee was perfectly acceptable, although probably not the top of the tree.

I handed over the footy socks her uncle had sent for her (don’t ask!) and we then had a good catch-up. She mostly talked about her new job at Beyond Zero Emissions, and the strategy meeting she attended last weekend.

She has so much happening in her life it would take a lot more than the allocated one hour to deal with it all. That’s a good excuse to repeat the exercise soon.

About oldblack

ageing, misanthropic, cynical...black
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4 Responses to long black at Shortlist

  1. Having a grown-up breakfast out with one’s daughter sounds like such a treat! One more thing to look forward to in my old(er) age. I think I would find jazz at 7 am a little too much, but on the other hand I think your 7 am is my 9 am, as I haven’t usually been up for an hour yet at 7!

    • oldblack says:

      Christine, I couldn’t agree more! This is what parenthood is all about, as far as I am concerned: to relate to your children as fully independent adults.

      I love meeting her and learning from her, being introduced to new cafés, hearing about what different things she does, hearing a mature and well-thought-out perspective on local and world events, being inspired by her enthusiasm, being challenged by her lifestyle, etc.

      I am sure you will be similarly blessed, in not many years time.

  2. geowench says:

    Hey have you seen this?
    http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/08/why-runners-get-injured/
    I was noticing yesterday that elliptical running keeps me off my heels and on the ball of my feet. Also the sort of shuffle/jog thing I do off the elliptical that I’ve adopted recently keeps me more on the balls of my feet while the way I’ve run in the past is definitely hard heel striking.
    -geowench

    • oldblack says:

      Interesting story . . . I would think the Achilles tendon would be one structure which would experience quite different stress patterns in forefoot landing compared with heel landing. Maybe that’s just what you need to fix yours?

      I have to admit that I would be fearful of consciously changing my running style from the “natural” one; worried that unless I managed it right I would get a different type of injury (e.g. the metatarsal fracture mentioned in the NY Times article)

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