The End of Another Day, The End of Another Tour

It's about 6:30 PM, and I'm pretty sure I'm in CST. I'm on a small plane from Birmingham to Denver, where I have short layover before my flight back to Phoenix later tonight.

It's quite picturesque outside my tiny porthole to the world. Our dusk is stretching in length as we hurdle at 500 mph toward the setting sun. My cell phone doesn't have a camera to write home about, but here are images I just snapped:

Having been on the road since Christmas Day, I'm quite excited to get home, even if it's only for a short week. The next chunk of tour, which will take us into July (at the earliest), will include stops in states I've yet to visit, a short jaunt in Central America, an entire month in China, and the 2nd year of the Barrage Boot Camp for high school strings in Illinois.

Anyway, I thought I'd take this time while I'm captive on the plane to write up a post about my birthday celebrations that occurred just about a week ago.

Basically, this post is an ode (and a thankful anecdote) to my incredible parents, who definitely outdid themselves in their attempts to celebrate my birthday with me on the road.

It all started the Friday night I performed in Houston (Feb. 26th). We were enjoying dinner in the cafeteria of the high school at which we were performing when one of the orchestra teachers got up on a table to address the 200 orchestra students also eating in the room. I initially made nothing of his speech, as it's common for teachers to address their students in front of us. I tuned in, however, when I heard him say, "...and one of the player's parents contacted me to let me know about his upcoming birthday. So, Taylor, would you please stand up so we can sing to you?"

As I awkwardly stood up, a room full of 200 students began to sing happy birthday, a mom was filming the whole thing on her camera, and another student delivered me a giant birthday card that many students had signed. It was pretty awesome, to say the least. The goodwill continued afterward, as well, when it seemed as though nearly every other person in the autograph line gave me birthday wishes!

The following morning (Feb. 27th) was the morning of the Rodeo Run 10K in Houston. After the race, Jason had scheduled a players' meeting to discuss various job-related happenings which he had broadcast with an undertone of frustration, leading us to believe that he had received bad news from a manager or the union or something along those lines. Pretty much nobody wanted to deal with it on our day off, and we all publicly lamented it the days and hours before it's arrival that afternoon.

You can imagine my surprise, then, when I walked into the meeting room at the La Quinta to discover that we were having a mini-birthday celebration catered by Einstein's Bagel Bros! My mom had contacted a nearby Einstein's and convinced them to make a delivery (something that Einstein's doesn't do). The employees even picked up a birthday card and signed it!

Definitely much better than a meeting. Props to the whole band for keeping up the ruse! Truly impressive. (Or, perhaps I should be more concerned that the rest of the band could lie so easily to my face!)

A quick update of dusk, 30 minutes later:

On the day of my actual birthday (Feb. 28th), I didn't expect anything more to happen from my parents. My mom's the type of gift-giver who excels at the sly art of surprise, always throwing off the recipient in some way, shape, or form. Therefore, it'd be much too predictable to receive anything on my actual birthday.

After Jason had the audience in Wichita Falls, TX, sing me happy birthday during the show (a Barrage birthday tradition), we all headed down to the basement of the theatre building for a private donor reception the theatre manager was holding. A private donor reception which included snacks and drinks, as well as a chocolate birthday cake for me!

In talking to my mom on March 1st, the day after my birthday, she relayed a conversation in which my dad asked her how she could possibly out-do herself next year. Her response? "I just won't do anything. That'll be the surprise: no birthday surprises!" Ha!

Thanks, Mom & Dad, for how awesome you two are. I feel so unbelievably fortunate to have parents so eager to celebrate with me though I wasn't home.

And with that, ladies and gents, I'll leave you with dusk as it is now, 50 minutes after the first picture: Back on the road in a week.