Turning turds to treats...

Yup, you read it right. Today was I faced with the task of turning turds to treats. I had been planning a downtown excursion with my little bits for a while and decided that this Saturday (today) was the day. Free parking on Saturdays and our mission was to explore the shops and cafes that our little downtown has to offer and any other treasures that lay unseen. Furthermore, the trolley in our little city is FREE and the bits have been stoked about riding it since the first time they saw it scooting around the city--my smallest bit likened it to the trolley on Mr. Rogers and, well, that's just good times to be had.
Anywho-- I get up early, pack a little backpack cooler of snacks and wake the bits--they're jumping with glee, bedheads and all. Once we get downtown, there might as well be tumbleweed rolling across the streets. Like, I'm waiting for a gunslinger to waltz out of an alley and question my presence in "this here town". Could our city be more pathetic? They've been talking "downtown this and downtown that" in our little city--asking what they could do to draw people to downtown. Here's a thought and it's just from little ole' me but--HOW ABOUT BUSINESS HOURS ON THE FREAKIN' WEEKEND!!!!!!!!!!!! Here we are in the barren core--my little bits, me and large numbers of the area's unhoused.
We found a trolley sign that read "runs every 30 minutes"--we waited close to an hour before moving on to find another sign--perhaps this sign was sending bad vibes. Some kind of mad, voodoo force-field that repelled the trolley--whatever. After we had walked a few blocks away from the trolley repellent, we see a trolley in the distance--we could never catch it but I have simultaneously spotted a sign in the opposite direction. If we can make it, we can anchor there until the trolley makes it's way around the next few blocks, as it seems to be heading in our direction. We're running, we're laughing, it's great.
We make it--the trolley doors open before us and it's like the pearly gates of public transportation. Whahoo! It's cute on the inside, very antique-chic, but this particular trolley, the weekend variety, only skirts AROUND downtown. We're missing the innards--the core, and we're seeing all that is yet to be "gentrified--the building remnants, the closed businesses, junkyards, etc. Okay, I think--good times, there's more to be had. We've ridden the trolley for about half an hour and my bits are pleased. Let's get off and trek deeper in search of a cute sidewalk cafe or something city-fied.
Yeah. Anyway...'k.
I'm pissed and sour at this point--want to just go home and frump. Kicking my own ass for several blocks for recently buying a house in this pathetic, po-dunk city preventing me from moving to a real city, I'm ready to go and the bits couldn't agree more.
On our way back to the car, parked five or so blocks away, we see that our downtown library has recently opened it's cafe. That'll do but my mood's too far gone at this point and I soon find that the coffee sucks, whatever. I'm geared into breakin' bad on my pseudocity when I see several posters in the hall of the library advertising an amazing holocaust survivor's exhibit. Don't cheese grin yet little mama, the exhibit LEFT THE LIBRARY TWO FREAKIN' MONTHS AGO!!!!!!!!!!! Really people, gather your shit together please and let's just appear to be civilized.
On the way home, I ask the bits if they would like to go for a bike ride with me when we get home. We live in a new neighborhood and we've yet to fully explore what it has to offer. It's a great little bohemian slice of the greater armpit and perhaps the only thing keeping me sane here--besides the bits
We get our bikes and coast away with new hopes and altered attitudes. We stop in a little thrift shop--cute. Make a note to come back. Then I tell the bits we need to search for a playground--something close enough to bike to. We turn up and down a few blocks, not far, and bless me buddha, not only have we found a cute little plastic and steel playground oasis, it's got baseball fields, picnic tables and, oh yeah mama, several water spouts shooting water into the air and raining down in blessed, summertime perfection--nothing like water-drenched babes on hot summer days.
We got wet--it was bliss, absolute bliss. And I felt saved under the spray of the water only a bike ride away. Like I had made something of this day for the bits, for me--for us.
We biked home satisfied, content--with our memories, our cheese smiles, our wet pants and, yes, I almost forgot, harboring treats instead of turds.