{"id":1041,"date":"2023-10-01T10:59:59","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T15:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/?p=1041"},"modified":"2023-11-02T23:04:23","modified_gmt":"2023-11-03T04:04:23","slug":"30-sep-2023-being-elmo-in-philly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/?p=1041","title":{"rendered":"[30 Sep 2023] Being Elmo in Philly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today I volunteered to do the honor of playing Elmo at a Philadelphia outdoor block party for Philly AIDS Thrift<\/a>. I had no idea what to expect, but I always thought it would be fun to be the Phillie Phanatic for a day. This is as close as I\u2019m ever going to get.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It was nice spreading cheer and goodwill to so many Philadelphians. In my red fur there were no preconceived notions about who I was or what I valued. I made a lot of people smile. I enjoyed playing and dancing with the children. The most memorable dance was one little shy girl who would not give me a high five let me touch her. However she loved dancing in circles with me, it was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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That being said being Elmo, in a life sized heavy, warm costume, is one of the hardest things I\u2019ve ever done. I was hot. Thankfully, some other volunteers brought me some water. I hung in there as Elmo for four hours. One of the lessons I learned is never wear jeans . My jeans and shirt were soaked as if I was in the dunk tank that was outdoors at the event . My upper back is sore and my neck probably from balancing that Elmo head on my body for so long. It was great fun. I danced around making adults and children feeling more free to dance. W O R D up ! I do it again despite nausea and pain tonight – nothing ventured, nothing gained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here\u2019s a picture from my mascot escapade. I\u2019m hoping I find some of the pictures of me as Elmo an action. Be well and do the best you can with what you got. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Today I volunteered to do the honor of playing Elmo at a Philadelphia outdoor block party for Philly AIDS Thrift. I had no idea what to expect, but I always thought it would be fun<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[15,7,16],"class_list":["post-1041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure-stories","tag-elmo","tag-philadelphia","tag-philly-aids-thrift"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1041"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1046,"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1041\/revisions\/1046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/captainapplesauce.com\/gab\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}