so on the morning of the snowstorm was when i'd be driving down to providence to retrieve my cell phone from renata's parents' house. since i lost the phone i've been feeling helpless. since i don't have a land line, that's my only phone. it's also my watch and an alarm clock. i don't go anywhere without it. from time to time i'd still feel some phantom vibrations in my pants, as if i still had it with me. so out i went, the landscape already covered in a layer of white, with more snow falling. down the street were columns of smoke from mufflers, commuters warming up their cars and de-icing the windows. i searched the car but couldn't find any tools. i used my gloved hands to brush off the snow, but the windows were coated in a layer of ice i couldn't easily remove (last night it was raining, then every froze in the early morning). i had to improvise and used the plastic case of one of my camera filters to scrape off the ice. i drove to the local gas station to fill the tank before driving south to rhode island.

traffic for the most part wasn't bad, since i left at 9am so it was already after the rush hour. everyone was going slow, and so was i (i wasn't in any great rush), although i did some fast driving in the leftmost suicide lane during brief periods of snowy calm. i didn't clean the windshield wipers very well so there were chunks of ice still stuck on them, which left streaks on the windshield, making it kind of hard to see. however, eventually the ice melted and it got better. i wouldn't be getting lost this time around, i was able to find renata's parents' house just fine, arriving at 11am. i was afraid her mother would forget and that i drove all the way down for nothing, but there was a plastic bag tied to the front door handle (nobody was home) and inside was my cell phone. i was so happy i could've kissed the phone, but instead i called renata's mother to let her know everything was okay now.

driving back up i had the option of hitting 93, which gave me the perfect opportunity to revisit ponkapoag bog. i already had a feeling i'd be taking a little nature detour since i bought my photo equipment when i left the house. i was hoping i'd be the only one there but was dismayed when i saw another car parked outside. however, there were no footprints in the snow leading out of the car so it was probably abandoned overnight. no one had been on the trail as i was the first person to leave my footprints. likewise when i finally arrived at the boardwalk, everything was pristine, just a path of white planks.

snow	winter
fall (october)	rain (sept)

a lot of the bog was covered in snow, so it'd appear to be solid, but in actuality if you were to step off the boardwalk, you'd fall into the water. eventually i made it all the way to the end of the boardwalk. there was one plank that isn't secured and sinks into the water when you step on it. remembering which one it was, i ran across before it could sink too much. at the very end one of the planks was missing. it was just covered up in an inch of slush, i dug it up with my feet and quickly walked over it to get to the final board.

if i thought there wasn't a lot to see last when i went i paid this place a visit, there was even less things with the snow covering up everything. i had a hard time finding pitcher plants, only came across three plants, the rest were buried deep enough that i didn't know where they were.

finally i left the bog, because it was cold, because i had to go home and possibly do some work (it was getting close to 2pm), and because my stomach felt really weird and i needed to use the bathroom (aftermath of last night's hot pot dinner). about 40 minutes later i was able to arrive in belmont, where i was picking up my father for work. he was busy at home copying some chinese miniseries vcd's on my sister's pc. when he was done he gave me a ride back to cambridge.

i ate two cannolis for a late lunch, followed by a philly cheese steak hot pocket for dinner. dan dropped by in the early evening to give me his house keys so i can get his mail and feed his fish while he and cymara are away on vacation in brazil. he couldn't get a taxi (to get to the airport) and had to walk over in the freezing cold, but when he called again from my place a taxi arrived in just under 5 minutes. spiderman 2 came from netflix so i watched that (never saw it in the theatres, a lot more emotional story than i realized, i found it worth watching), as well as monday night football (patriots beat the dolphins). the japanese zombie movie stacy that i returned a week ago shows up as still "out" on my netflix list, so i had to report it as a missing dvd. my usb 2.0 pci card from macmall arrived, i was able to install it into my 400mhz G4 without any problems. at first i was all excited when i saw the package on my doorstep because i thought maybe the portable photo storage device came as well, but just from the weight of the box i knew it wasn't included. the invoice provided no further info other than "back ordered."