Lionel.

Can we talk about Lionel?

I don't remember the last time that I showed you all a picture of this guy.  He looks less than pleased here.  This was right before I left for Italy this summer and I wanted a picture to show the family that I used to work for as a nanny.  The dad and youngest son were here the summer we got Lionel.  He looked like a black lab puppy.  I wanted to show them how three years had changed him, so I used myself as a perspective giver.

This is the ding dong at the dog park.  He gets all heated up in eleventeen seconds and heads right for the swampy mess of a pond.  Happy as a clam.  Eating mud, being all Loch Ness Monster-y.....right after this picture was taken, he turned around and looked at me with grass hanging from his mouth and mud dripping from his jowls.  God, he reaked that day.  Thus, so did my car with the cloth seats.  For days.

This is his stoic look.  Not really.  He could be tired, he could be pissed off, he is actually looking out the front window surveying his kingdom.  He does not deign to give attention to me this day.

Exhausted.  Too tired to get out of the car after a day at "school".  "Ef You." is what is probably thinking right now.