Wondering if it rained cat pee this afternoon

I just took my dog for a walk, and this is what happened in the course of the minute and a half we were outside:

Sniff steps and ground
Pee
Sniff ground and steps
Run for the safety of inside

He is a rather skittish guy, so him suddenly becoming scared and cutting walks short is nothing new. For example, if it is after 8 PM, he is scared of the dark and will only stay outside long enough to pee and race back inside - about 20 seconds total. Another example: we were walking by a traveling carnival; the kind that schools and churches sometimes use for an annual fundraiser. He's a social dog, so we thought he'd love the crowds. What we didn't calculate was the immense fear he'd have of the pirate ship ride. He saw the swinging boat, gave it a couple seconds' look, and bolted in the other direction. Weeks later, the carnival long gone, we took a walk past the same parking lot in which the carnival was held and doggie did not like that. Not one bit. It was as though he was certain that a pirate ship would pop up out of the ground and chase him down the street at any moment.

Where was I? Oh, yes. Cat pee rain. If you don't have one and are therefore unaware, dogs really like to sniff where other dogs have peed. This generally means all low vertical objects: trash cans, sign posts, tree trunks, and the stereotypical fave - fire hydrants. Not really the ground so much. The combination of fear and sniffing the ground leads me to believe it must have rained cat pee. Oh, he's sometimes afraid of cats. Did I mention that? Also fireworks, thunder, black people when we first got him (thankfully just a phase - for a time we feared our dog was a bigot), trains, helicopters, statues of animals...

Bobby McBrayer?

I guess I'd never heard Bobby Jindal speak until Tuesday night. And it was a bit difficult to take him seriously* when I kept picturing Jack McBrayer when I closed my eyes. Even when I blinked, I couldn't stop the image. What do you think? View Jindal's speech. (A couple sentences is all you need.)

Now play this:

Livin' 'Neath the Law with Jack McBrayer: Episode 3 from Jack McBrayer

And it isn't just the accent. I lived in the south for about 14 years and still have a slight accent myself, so I'm not one of those Yankees who thinks all Southerners sound the same. Both sound like they are smiling wide when they are talking (which I actually find endearing), but also, the inflections of the two are eerily similar. "I'm Bobby Jindal, governor of Louisiana. Tonight, we've witnessed a great moment in the history of our republic. In the very chamber where Congress once voted to abolish slavery, our first African-American president stepped forward to address the state of our union."

*Also making it difficult to take him seriously were the following:

1 - The boilerplate when stating anything negative about Obama, his policy, or his party: "Look at that guy. Boy, it's neat that we elected someone who would have been covered with mustard at a lunch counter 49 years ago or in slavery 144 years ago. Racism's over now that we have an African American president, and clearly I'm not racist, since I am commending this progress."

2 - I thought he was supposed to be responding to Obama. But then he pulled a muscle patting himself on the back.