Warning: This post contains brief, Renaissance nudity.
Hey! It's been a minute. I hit a bit of a roadblock with this blog a few months ago because I didn't know what to write about. There are a lot of contributing factors to the lack of motivation, but in the center of it was the feeling that since I'm not traveling for the foreseeable future, I don't really have any interesting stories to tell. There's the tangled mess of questions marks regarding my health, job, and future in general, but that's kind of drag to think about too much. Things aren't terrible. Just not as interesting as life on the road.
Recently, I remembered that I chose the name of this blog, Dynamic DJR, over my second choice, Wandering Rice, because I wanted the freedom to write about more than just traveling. With that, I think it's time to give this another shot.
At some point I'll write an update on my health and job stuff, but for now I want to tell the story of David, my favorite refrigerator magnet.
* * * * *
Backstory: A few years ago, a close friend visited Tuscany and brought me back a magnet depicting Michelanglo's David.
https://www.michelangelo.org/david.jsp |
Only it's a close up...
http://www.accademia.org/explore-museum/artworks/michelangelos-david/ |
No, not of his face...
https://www.boredpanda.com/michelangelo-david-close-up-photos/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic |
Nor of his hand.
It's of a different kind of appendage altogether...
On to the current tale!
The Sunday before Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law drove up with my niece and nephew to visit for a couple of days. Within moments of their arrival, I walked into the kitchen to find my niece, age 5, holding the magnet in question and staring this:
Me: "Ah! You found my magnets."
Niece: "Who's this? He's cute!"
Me: "Oh, that's David."
My nephew, days away from his 11th birthday, joins the conversation and looks over his sister shoulder.
Nephew: "Cool! Is that a sheep?"
Me: "Sure looks like it could be a sheep."
I have a lot of magnets on my refrigerator. Why she picked the only one that is even remotely questionable is beyond me. Is it because it was by itself in the upper corner? Did her animal-loving personality reject the landscape pictures and quirky sayings in favor of this "sheep'? All I know is normally I get great enjoyment out of watching people's reaction when they realize what David is. This time I felt like I was in danger of becoming their creepy aunt.
Did I ruin this innocence?!?! |
Being very hands-on kids, every time they came into the kitchen, the magnets on the refrigerator got rearranged into different shapes and patterns. They asked a lot of questions about the various pictures, and David the Sheep was a recurring favorite.
One of their creations |
My favorite thing about this systematic arrangement is that the magnet all by itself in the lower, left corner reads, "Why Be Normal? |
My sister-in-law and I got a great amount of enjoyment out of their innocent imaginations. The funniest was them speculating on how David must be very strong because his shoulders are so huge. This involved a prolonged attempt by my nephew to scrunch his shoulder's up high enough to make his head look small.
We also look forward to laughing at them heartily once they finally recognize David for who he really is!
This is my nephew. Here he isn't imitating David the Sheep, but rather he's proudly showing off that he put his pj's on backwards. |