shopping was a great success!

"American Notes"

"Quiet people avoid the question of the Presidency, for there will be a new election in three years and a half, and party feeling runs very high: the great constitutional feature of this institution being, that directly the acrimony of the last election is over, the acrimony of the next one begins ... "

- Charles Dickens, visiting the United States in 1842

Whoa, basil got big

Remember the little sprouts from once upon a time? They're all grown up.