Early this afternoon, under a dark
cloud that threatened rain and seemed set on following me all morning, I
decided to hit the Barnes & Noble over in the quiet of Forest Hills. My
mission... to pick up my next read for book club this month. As I was
daydreaming towards the store in question, I suddenly heard the smooth crooning
of Elvis Presley coming from loud speakers overhead. I had just passed one of
my favorite (but not often enough visited) lunch spots, Johnny Rockets.
Realizing where I was, I suddenly felt the pull of those peanut butter malts as
they were calling my name through the ambiance and I just had to make a detour,
which lasted nearly two hours. Between hearing the King of Rock making his
rounds on the playlist and that fabulous malt, I was in 50's heaven. While
sitting in my red vinyl booth, I got to thinking of this master of music and all
of his great accomplishments. By the time Elvis was my age, he had already
released several albums, starred in twenty-five films, served in the military,
married Priscilla, conceived Lisa Marie, bought Graceland and his pink Fleetwood Cadillac! I was starting to feel a little
insignificant after mulling that over. As much as I love the King of Rock and
Roll, I hate him at the same time. I'm a bit of an Elvis junkie actually. While girls in the 90's
were listening to Nirvana I was walking around with my Walkman jamming to
"Jail House Rock." Sadly, I can never meet this great man who got me
through some rough times. But darn it, I'm going to visit his legacy estate,
Graceland, with all of its guts and glory like I always hoped I would someday.
I mean to see that pink Cadillac with my very own eyes! Mission two of the
day... buy a round trip ticket to Memphis, Tennessee.
As soon as the thought went into my
head, my fingers were banging away on my handy dandy laptop while sucking on
the last of my peanut butter malt. I searched every different means of travel I
could and every airline in and around New York City that could fit my budget.
Finally, I bought myself a plane ticket for the last weekend of August. There
are two reasons I chose the end of August. First, it was the cheapest ticket I
could find from now until the end of the year. Two, August is the anniversary
month of Elvis's death and I'm sure there will be some great tributes going on during
that time. It's Graceland or bust now! Especially since my flight is
nonrefundable. I never did make it to Barnes & Noble due to a time crunch, but
my day wasn't a complete failure. I did managed to complete one out of two assignments
today and that's not so bad. "Just taking care of business"...one
mission at a time.
Don't
worry, this blog will not self-destruct in 5 seconds.
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