Get away from the usual distractions, the every day stress and take a road trip with the one you love. Bring romance back into your relationship with some time alone, some snacks, a road map and a vehicle for two.

Share a few adventures. Make a plan but be prepared to stray from the plan. Try a road just because it caught your eye. Maybe the name of the street was unusual or reminded you of something. Or, it might be a road leading to a beach, an old mill, something for you to discover together. Don't worry about getting lost. That's just part of the adventure. Together, with the map, you can figure it all out. Besides, you can't really be too lost when you're together.

If you can spend some extra money rent a fancy car for the trip. Plan a great place to stay overnight too, a romantic bed and breakfast or a luxurious hotel.

Leave children at home for this trip. This is grown ups only. If you have children get a babysitter who can stay late, even over night if you can manage to splurge on a hotel or a bed and breakfast. There are all kinds of games, not all of them are for the road.

Get Lost Together

People seem to think there is something wrong with being lost. I know people who will never leave the main road because they fear getting lost. It's actually not so easy to get lost when you have a good map. Find a map of your area which shows the back roads. You might bring along a compass to give you the extra direction for north, south, east and west. Between the map, the compass and your own common sense you can find your way into a town or back to the busier roads. So don't let a simple thing like getting lost stop you from having an adventure off the every day route and roadways.

Do Things Together

Leave the mobile phones and other communication devices at home. But bring your camera. Read the settings so you can set the timer and snap photographs of yourselves, together. Or ask other people you come across to take the photos for you. Make sure you have several photos where one of you isn't hidden behind the camera.

Stop for a lunch or dinner (a breakfast if you are out there and on the road early) but don't go to a restaurant. Pick a grocery store, or a farmer's market or roadside stand and gather your goodies. If the weather is good have your own picnic outdoors. If the weather is snowy or wet and cold eat in the vehicle. (Most of us have gone through the drive through at some fast food place and eaten in the car when we are alone).

If you see something interesting like a roadside attraction, a local fair or festival take a break from the driving and explore together. Buy baked goods, fresh produce, arts and crafts or buy nothing at all. The only thing that matters is that you stick together and talk about the things you see.

Play Road Games

Don't laugh or think the old road games are too silly or just for children. Any little game to help pass the time will also give you something to talk about, something to laugh about too. What games did you play on family trips when you were a kid: I Spy, Licence Plate Bingo, memory games and finding the alphabet.

Bring along a good book and read to each other. Try romantic poetry if that suits your style.

Don't forget music. Pull off to the side of the road, turn up the car radio and dance together. See if you can work your way up to a cuddly slow dance.

If you can't dance then sing together. Put on the old familiar tunes and see who can remember most of the words and who has the most creative wrong words.

Share the back seat. Cuddle, make out or just curl up and have a nap together.

At the End of the Day

Use souvenirs, mementos, the photos you took to create a scrapbook from the trip. You don't need to be a scrapbooker, just make something out of all the photos which you can pull out later to remember the trip. Use the collection you create to tell the story of the trip. It will also work great when you're planning the next road trip romance.

Get away from the usual distractions, the every day stress and take a road trip with the one you love. Bring romance back into your relationship with some time alone, some snacks, a road map and a vehicle for two.

Share a few adventures. Make a plan but be prepared to stray from the plan. Try a road just because it caught your eye. Maybe the name of the street was unusual or reminded you of something. Or, it might be a road leading to a beach, an old mill, something for you to discover together. Don't worry about getting lost. That's just part of the adventure. Together, with the map, you can figure it all out. Besides, you can't really be too lost when you're together.

If you can spend some extra money rent a fancy car for the trip. Plan a great place to stay overnight too, a romantic bed and breakfast or a luxurious hotel.

Leave children at home for this trip. This is grown ups only. If you have children get a babysitter who can stay late, even over night if you can manage to splurge on a hotel or a bed and breakfast. There are all kinds of games, not all of them are for the road.

Get Lost Together

People seem to think there is something wrong with being lost. I know people who will never leave the main road because they fear getting lost. It's actually not so easy to get lost when you have a good map. Find a map of your area which shows the back roads. You might bring along a compass to give you the extra direction for north, south, east and west. Between the map, the compass and your own common sense you can find your way into a town or back to the busier roads. So don't let a simple thing like getting lost stop you from having an adventure off the every day route and roadways.

Do Things Together

Leave the mobile phones and other communication devices at home. But bring your camera. Read the settings so you can set the timer and snap photographs of yourselves, together. Or ask other people you come across to take the photos for you. Make sure you have several photos where one of you isn't hidden behind the camera.

Stop for a lunch or dinner (a breakfast if you are out there and on the road early) but don't go to a restaurant. Pick a grocery store, or a farmer's market or roadside stand and gather your goodies. If the weather is good have your own picnic outdoors. If the weather is snowy or wet and cold eat in the vehicle. (Most of us have gone through the drive through at some fast food place and eaten in the car when we are alone).

If you see something interesting like a roadside attraction, a local fair or festival take a break from the driving and explore together. Buy baked goods, fresh produce, arts and crafts or buy nothing at all. The only thing that matters is that you stick together and talk about the things you see.

Play Road Games

Don't laugh or think the old road games are too silly or just for children. Any little game to help pass the time will also give you something to talk about, something to laugh about too. What games did you play on family trips when you were a kid: I Spy, Licence Plate Bingo, memory games and finding the alphabet.

Bring along a good book and read to each other. Try romantic poetry if that suits your style.

Don't forget music. Pull off to the side of the road, turn up the car radio and dance together. See if you can work your way up to a cuddly slow dance.

If you can't dance then sing together. Put on the old familiar tunes and see who can remember most of the words and who has the most creative wrong words.

Share the back seat. Cuddle, make out or just curl up and have a nap together.

At the End of the Day

Use souvenirs, mementos, the photos you took to create a scrapbook from the trip. You don't need to be a scrapbooker, just make something out of all the photos which you can pull out later to remember the trip. Use the collection you create to tell the story of the trip. It will also work great when you're planning the next road trip romance.

I don't have a link for this. It was posted as a web course which is now gone.

Russian Culture By Lindsay Kosarev

Introduction

Russia is not something you understand with your mind. To have any understanding of the logic or culture of Russia, you need to feel her soul, her history, and her people.

Living the Russian Way is designed to give the student a glimpse at a completely different life perspective and way of thinking. I am not focused on historical or political debates, as many Russians are not. Part of Russian thinking is that these things cannot really be answered. Plus, it is better to make such discussions in the privacy of your home with a couple of good friends and a bottle of something intoxicating.

In other culture classes there is a focus in polite and “cultural” Russian culture, but this not such a course. I will not be talking about the Bolshoi Theater or traditional singing, but rather real people and living culture. This course will be challenging, not necessarily in the material, but it will challenge your perceptions about life. This challenge is the point behind cultural adaption. It will be challenging because you will begin to enter into and try to feel out the elusive and mysterious Russian soul. …more

The world is just fine, as a planet. The people who were on the planet are gone. All gone, or are they...?

One reason this movie may never have become one of the well known classics is because some of us (like myself) don't think being alone in the world would be such a terrible thing. Could you handle being the last person on the planet, alone in every way, all day and night?

Harry Belafonte stars in this movie as a miner who is trapped deep in the mine. The world outside undergoes a war and when he finally manages to rescue himself from the mine he discovers everyone he has ever known is now gone. The reason he was never rescued from the mine was the absence of man power.

What would it be like to really be the last people on Earth?

My favourite part of the movie is watching Ralph (Harry Belafonte) make his own world in the dead world he finds himself so alone in. Ralph doesn't like being alone. He makes a place for himself where he brings in store mannequins to seem like company. He talks to them and interacts with them. But, one day, one of the plastic smiles of a mannequin gets on his nerves so he throws him off the balcony.

Down below a woman screams. This is where the story takes on another aspect, the issue of the last man and the last woman standing and, more importantly, the issue of black and white - race.

This movie comes out in the early 1960's. Racism was a big issue, or not, depending on how you look at it. When being racist is socially acceptable and expected is racism an issue at all? When the last two people on the planet are a black man and a white woman is race something of an issue? It is for Ralph, the lead character. He does not feel he can be anything beyond friends with this young, white woman. Yet she thinks there is nothing stopping them, until she finds herself talking about being young, female and white. The movie does make a great statement about race and how the issue is felt beyond the obvious.

Of course, everything is all upset again when a third person comes into their small society, a white man.

The movie ends in a unique way, a solution which seems too modern and is not likely to work out in the reality. It does give the movie a tidier and happier ending. Although... I have always wondered how things will work out as more people are found or manage to find this small group and begin to meld in. Is it possible some of this original group will wander off to be alone again?

Poinsettias are not Poisonous

Did you suddenly feel the need to gnaw on a poinsettia? Unusual but the odd pet or child will give the poinsettia plant a nibble. Luckily, the urban legend is untrue. Poinsettias are not a poisonous plant.

Spurges, the plant family poinsettias (Euphorbia pulcherrima) belong to, do contain some highly toxic plants. The poinsettia itself is not toxic. There were cases where poinsettias were thought to have poisoned children but it was later proved to be something else over looked at the time.

The POISINDEX says a 50 pound child would have to eat over 500 poinsettia leaves to be in any danger of being poisoned by enough toxins in the poinsettia plant. Only a garden centre might have that may poinsettias in one room at one time. But I'm pretty sure eating the first few poinsettia leaves would be enough to make anyone re-think the plan of eating more.

The poinsettia does not taste nice (very unpleasant from opinions I have read) and eating the leaves can bring on nausea and vomiting. Most children, animals and people in general will not continue eating the poinsettia plant after the first taste of it.

There are no documented cases of death from poinsettia ingestion.

However, the sap from the poinsettia can cause skin irritation (just as it irritates the gastrointestinal tract when eaten). Use soap and water to wash the skin. Avoid rubbing or touching your eyes if you have gotten the poinsettia sap on your hands.

Where did the Urban Legend Start?

In 1919, the two year old daughter of a US Army officer died. People attributed the death to the little girl having eating poinsettia leaves. No real proof was found when this was investigated later.

There was never any real proof that the girl had died as a result of the poinsettia leaves. Likely she had eaten them at some point, become sick and then died hours later from some other cause. Death by poinsettia was ruled out through research into poinsettias years afterwards.

Poinsettia History

Poinsettias are native to Central America and Mexico.

The plant was named after an American ambassador to Mexico, Joel Robert Poinsett. In 1829 he sent some poinsettias home to his greenhouses in South Carolina. They grew very well there and became popular.

Paul Ecke created the grafting technique which made it easier to grow and market poinsettias. His son, Paul Ecke Jr., heavily promoted the poinsettia as the Christmas flower. Paul Jr. shipped poinsettias to TV and movie stars and appeared on TV himself, promoting the poinsettia, grown by his family.

In the 1990's a university researcher discovered the same grafting technique used by the Ecke family and ended their monopoly, bringing in competition from nurseries all over the US. The Ecke family still deal in plants but they no longer produce poinsettia plants in the US. But, no fear, there are endless other places which do and it is not likely you will ever be unable to find a poinsettia in a shopping mall, grocery store, garden centre or even the odd dollar store, near you.

Why the Poinsettias are a Christmas Flower

According to Mexican legend (starting sometime in the 16th century), the poinsettia was a Christmas miracle.

Mexico had their own Little Drummer Boy who had nothing to offer the new baby Jesus at his birthday. The poor child gathered weeds and created a boquet with them. Some say his sadness caused poinsettias to bloom at his feet and that was the bouquet he gathered. Either way, when he visited the altar for the baby Jesus, the weeds transformed into (or were already) beautiful red blooming poinsettias.

Mexicans also know the poinsettia as Flores de Noche Buena (Flowers of the Holy Night).

Thus, poinsettias are the Christmas flower.

Poisonous Poinsettias are an Urban Legend

• Myth Busted: Poinsettias Are Poisonous - Urban Legends

• Poinsettia plants are poison to children and pets - Fiction!

• Snopes.com: Poisonous Poinsettias

• Poinsettia - Wikipedia