A Visit to the Dentist...and Starbucks

After my (ugh) teeth-cleaning procedure yesterday morning I thought I'd reward myself for having survived it all by going a few blocks down 13th Street and getting an iced coffee from Starbucks...but no, that outlet is often backed up to the street with its drive-through line, clogging up the parking lot even for those like me who prefer to drink their coffee on-site.  So, I instead went to my familiar Starbucks haunt, a store that's been there since 2000 and never converted to one with a drive-through.  I understand the Starbucks Corporation's policy about rebuilding and moving existing stores to ones with that option for customers...I'd do it, too if I were in their shoes.  But my preference has always been for coffee shops WITHOUT drive-throughs, and I bemoan the loss of several Starbucks that, in the past, I had frequented and spent time studying and enjoying the ambiance.  I miss the ones in Tioga, Hunter's Crossing, Newberry Road (near the Royal Park Cinema), Archer and 34th, and 13th Street and 16th Avenue...these five were great places to visit and were highly popular. I have always enjoyed hanging out in coffee shops and have found their slightly nerve-wracking public surroundings an excellent setting for energizing my mind and focusing my thoughts on creative writing and introspection.  I'm writing this article in that favorite Starbucks in NW Gainesville's Magnolia Parke...may it never close down!  Before Starbucks arrived in my hometown, I often used to go to Krispy Kreme on NW 13th Street and 3rd Avenue, close to the University of Florida campus...I just got a gift card for KK so maybe I should check them out again.  I've also been in the habit of going to fast food places and just ordering a coffee, accomplishing the same thing for less money than at Starbucks.  I've tried this at my public library...it's just not the same.  As for that teeth-cleaning, in the past I had always regarded visiting the dentist's office as a traumatic experience...this time, though, using Eckhart Tolle's principles of think-less/observe-more from his book The Power of Now, I mentally sank into the background and put my old thought reactions on hold during the procedure.  It worked, producing the most pleasant dental visit I've had in quite a while...if you can really properly place the words "pleasant" and "dental visit" together in the same sentence. Also, the experience of open-heart surgery the previous July...along with the following two-week hospital stay and subsequent weeks-long recovery period...puts relatively minor things like a simple teeth-cleaning appointment into sharper perspective...