In the last week I have learned three new words. All of them sound like they are close to an obscenity. In some respects they are.

Last month we were bombarded on internet news sites with Miley Cyrus doing a sexually provocative dance that I later learned is called twerking. Not being into Hannah Montana,  I didn’t exactly know who Miley Cyrus was before all this twerk hit the fan. At least I am not admitting to knowing who she was.  In my day the twist was sexually provocative.  And Elvis Presley’s hip gyrations were deemed unsuitable for the Ed Sullivan show so they only screened him from the waist up.  It seems that the dance form is prone to pelvic thrusts and rotations as some sort of warm up to something else.  The twerk is just the latest name for something that has been around for quite a while. And Miley appears only to lack subtlety and talent rather than be doing anything new.

Today in the news it was an anti-fracking protest in New Brunswick that gained attention.  I was caught pondering WTF (what the frack) was all about.  Turns out it is some process whereby pressurized liquid is injected into rock, fracturing it and opening up small veins in the rock along which hydrocarbons and gasses can be extracted.  At least that is what I think it is.

If life hands you lemons, make lemonade. If you get salt…why not a salt lake?

It kind of reminds me of what I learned happened mining salt in Tuzla, Bosnia. This region had a lot of salt under the ground (Tuz, I think, is an arabic word for salt) and they had been extracting it by putting water down underground, dissolving the salt and withdrawing it.  Buildings that  had sunk right into the ground, the dissolved salt forming a kind of crater.   Whoops. The town, ever resourceful, turned the area into a salt lake for swimming and as a tourist attraction.

I don’t think George W is actually phubbing. He is trying to figure it out.

And then there was a CBC show this week on The Current on Phubbing.  I hope I never become a  phubber.  It refers to snubbing someone in a social circumstance by paying more attention to your phone.  You know the people – the ones who take their phones out and put them down on the table beside their plate when you go out for dinner with them.  The people who suddenly are talking to someone else when you are strolling beside them.  The people who interrupt your conversation to read and answer a text from someone obviously more important than you.  I didn’t know that this  ignorant behaviour had a name to it. But now I know. And so do you.

There is even an anti-phubbing website (stopphubbing.com) and Facebook page (Stop.Phubbing) dedicated to pointing out and decreasing this antisocial behaviour. It has downloads for posters for restaurants or table cards you can put  out at a wedding to discourage phubbing. Something that Sage Flowers could offer, perhaps, along with the beautiful bouquets.

If I EVER Phub you, please cut me to shreds over it.  And if you EVER do it to me, you can expect the same.  I will tolerate you Fracking me and even twerking me from time to time but thumbs down on Phubbing.