i received an automated e-mail from megabus this morning letting me know that our 6:00AM boston to new york bus was cancelled for tomorrow due to bad weather. i had an option of either getting a refund or rescheduling the tickets. however, this was a day trip, and the 6:40PM return trip from new york to boston wasn't cancelled, despite the fact that we couldn't get to new york. so i ended up calling megabus. the woman on the phone said i could get a refund on the return portion as well.

i made a mistake though, i should've asked for a free reschedule option instead. that way we could've gone next week. now if we were to buy the tickets again for this month, it'd be 3-9x more expensive, versus our original tickets, which were purchased back in january for just $3 a piece (early bird discount).

i was looking forward to revisiting new york again, getting my good eats on in flushing. our last time was back in early december. but a part of me is also relieved, a day trip to new york is exhausting, and there was the matter of the 4-6in snowstorm arriving later tonight into tomorrow morning.

i thought about biking but since it'd be snowing this evening, i decided to take the 73 bus to belmont instead. my mother was home watching hawaii 5-0. she made me a breakfast sandwich for lunch.

i went outside to take a tour of the backyard, maybe dig out a little bit more of the snow path. over the weeks i've found rabbit snow prints and rabbit droppings, didn't think much of it. that was until today, when i noticed they chewed up the quince bush to shreds. i never thought i could hate rabbits more than now. i decided to dig a moat around the bush, as well as the japanese maple nearby, which also suffered some branch damages from rabbits. i wasn't sure if it'd even work since rabbits can jump, but worth a try. why they waited until now to eat up the bush i don't know. maybe they just ate up everything else and now they're desparate.

the second time i went out to shovel, i dug out a small cave in the snow mound next to the sunroom.

when my father came home, i showed him my handiwork from inside the sunroom. it was right around dusk and wouldn't you know it, we spotted an eastern cottontail in the backyard, making its way to the quince bush. at first it looked like it didn't know how to get across the moat, but after a few seconds it disappeared, only to show up on the snow piece around the quince, hungrily nibbling on a branch. enraged, i went outside with hailey, hoping to get her to chase after the rabbit. but the rabbit heard us when we were halfway there, jumped over a fence (made low by the pile of snow), and ran across the neighbor's backyard. then throughout the evening i was so worried about the rabbit(s) would come back that i repeatedly inspected the quince with a laser pen to see if there were any rabbits (there weren't, at least not when i was there).

after dinner i got a ride back to cambridge.