I’m sitting in a Caribou Coffee now.

This place may be one of the best chain coffee shops there is.  Their coffee is pretty good, the iced coffee is cold brewed, and their iced tea is surprisingly good that I find myself ordering that fairly often.

The Caribou Coffee nearby my office used to be my little lunch hang-out spot.  I’d grab something to eat real quick, head to Caribou with a book, and drain my lunch break poured over a book and a cup of coffee.  It’s a nice change from a desk and a screen.

Well, I took a little break from my lunch routine for a few weeks just because it got a little busy at work, but when I showed up at my lunch-time hide-out, there was an immediate sense of distance, rather than coming back to a familiar home.  The signage was gone.  There weren’t any cars in the parking lot.  Then it struck me – they closed down.  All in a matter of weeks.  I had to suck it up and go to Starbucks.

There’s another Caribou closer to where I live, near Toco Hills.  That’s where I’m at right now.  I guess there’s some amount of karma involved, since I was greeted by signs indicating the newly-established 24-hour-ness of the place to appease the emotional anguish from losing the other one.  Where was this when I was in college?  Though, with all the studying I’ve been doing lately, I kind of feel like I’m back in college.  Well, not really, since I didn’t study nearly this much in college.

Some grad student just came by to ask me to fill out a survey for her research.  She, like a lot of other random girls coming through here tonight, is actually pretty easy on the eyes.  I wonder when Emory starts up again…