Archive
11 weeks
Coming to terms that I need to be doing campaign stuff every day, though Trevor recommended keeping a day of rest and that seems like good advice. I don’t want to feel pressured by expectations of what a candidate ought to do. I feel like what makes me a good candidate is who I am as a person so changing that more then is necessary seems foolish. The transition music on Christian television is ear shattering. Reminds to surf the other 3 channels and see what’s on. Caught some great Bob Newhart show earlier, it was a nice change from campaign filing requirements. Seems relatively straightforward. I have a lead on an experienced treasurer who has done some campaigns. Also have a lead on someone to handle media stuff and I have a draft of some literature I’m thinking about:
My name is Michael Trapp and I am asking you to join your neighbors in making Columbia’s Ward 2 and Columbia a safer, more vibrant community by electing me to City Council. As your city council representative I will advocate for Livable Streets, Good Governance, and a Future Focus to create a city that is a better place for our children and their children after. As someone who lives and works in Columbia’s Second Ward I am passionate to make our neighborhoods stronger. As a substance abuse counselor at Phoenix Programs, and a former case manager at Columbia’s domestic violence shelter I have insight into the lives of struggling people. If we create city services that are accessible and meaningful for the least amongst us we will have a city that works for all of us.
Livable Streets. With livable streets comes a greater opportunity for outside activity. This puts more eyes on the street and contributes to public safety and neighborliness. We all benefit from safe sidewalks. Those with modest means need good sidewalks and bicycle paths even more. Sidewalks improve traffic safety by moving pedestrians off busy roads. Bicycle routes and paths tell drivers and riders where to be on the street for smooth traffic flow. Livable streets promote a culture of snow and ice removal. They foster cultural opportunities and neighborhood events to decrease isolation. I support greater use of school crossing guards to monitor on-street parking regulations thus ensuring safety near our schools.
Good Governance: I bring common sense decision-making in the best interest of the City and the ward. I am a good istener so Second Ward voters can expect excellent constituent service. Maintaining fiscal responsibility and solid reserves. Passing laws in a deliberate and proactive manner. Avoiding costly boondoggles like Garagezilla.
Future Focus: We will be judged by the city we pass on to our children. Measures of our success will be how we considered future constraints as seen in our transportation planning, school and utility siting and other intensive infrastructure. Decisions should be made with a future focus and a cautious respect of the enormous power of bad decisions that look good in the short term. Protecting our community’s health and safety should always be our highest priority. Maintain what we like about Columbia but position our city to continue to grow into the future.
Mark your calendar for April 3.
Choose Mike Trapp for Second Ward City Council
Paid for by Corporate America. Dick Cheney, Treasurer*
*for purpose of satire only, the internet is still free
Yesterday looked over the budget. Looks complex how projects get put forward there’s a process. Only 3% of the city budget on sidewalks. Not a lot of projects in the Second Ward from a cursory glance. I was asked by the Tribune reporter about getting up to speed and I downplayed that but I know a lot of what I don’t know now and I have a much healthier respect for the learning curve. Ultimately its about applying values and people are stepping forward to help me. Which is good asking for help is not a strength. I have a healthy maybe overhealthy tendency towards self reliance.
I am thankful for unasked for support. Kahlil Gibran says, at least how I remember it “To give when asked is good, to give without being asked, out of knowledge is better”. I am a little nervous. Did get my mind off of it and walked Fido to the park. Mentioned my candidacy to one person not to another. I don’t want to campaign all the time or be on the make, even for votes. Fido got some good play with Robin and Miley which is awesome because their people are on the same schedule. Its staying light out later, that’s going to be nice. The stress of work has become a bit of a sanctuary. It is terribly engaging and demands you to be present almost all the time. Its amazing how things change with perspective.
I want to end with a story. A counselor was asked why the state spent so much money on prisons and so little on treatment in a group of struggling folk. The counselor said “The whole premise of the question is flawed. Your assuming that the state acts under reason and common sense. I have never seen any evidence of that. How things work is that older people vote more then younger people so the electorate skews old. Those folks, your grandparents, aunt, uncles, what have you are pandered too by politicians who promise to make them safe with tough talk about criminals.
They don’t mean you, your well meaning but scared relatives. They think they are these “Criminals” out there, not you who just fell in with the wrong crowd or made a couple bad decisions. Politicians don’t want to look soft on crime and they sell you out. You can’t even vote them out because we have created this permanent group of second class citizens called felons. But things are getting better. The state can no longer afford to just lock people out, there’s not enough money and alternatives are going to have to be looked at. Hopefully one day the Department of Corrections will not be the largest mental health provider in the state.” We can respond to people’s legitimate concerns about personal safety without sacrificing our children to penal serfdom.
“i am mostly water, 70 percent, don’t worry about the rent”
Listening to an alt country mix John made for me a long time ago. Great stuff, late 90s. Feeling grateful and content. Last week was a veritable whirlwind and until now I have subscribed to a drama free lifestyle for a long time. But not always and even as I’ve gone about a more ordinary existence I have known a penchant for action lays. Certainly won’t have to worry about boredom anytime soon as it looks.
Fido has been sleeping all day getting up only to follow me to whatever room I’m in and crashing. After better then a week of Olive 24/7 I think he just wants rest. We did walk down to the park and he played a bit with a 6 month old Blue Sheltie. I don’t think I’d ever seen one that cute. She got Fido to chase her but she was slow and they didn’t figure out how to play anything else so we walked the trail home.
I was tired today, slept poorly and slept in for me. I lay down for a nap but didn’t go down and ended up just reading a Spider Man comic. The 70s stuff has a strong since of nostalgia for me. “Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider Man” I remember well from when I was a boy. Tarantula is the villain and I remember drawing him, even the foreshortened right leg and having to imagine the toe spike that’s imbedded in the wall. He was like if Spider Man and Zorro had a kid being Hispanic and the half mask. Some of the stuffs pretty solid but there’s a cheese factor. My next one features the “Death Dance of the Hypno Hustler!”
I forgot this song is on the CD, awesome. Whenever I hear myself its unsettling and hard not to listen to myself and yet its not entirely pleasant (and not just because I’m such a bad singer).
Jeff and Becky and their kiddos came over for dinner. I was hoping Fido would get over his weirded out by kids thing if he had some sustained time with kids but no such luck. I had made minestrone soup yesterday. As a a base I used all my canned tomatoes (pretty much done with canned food all things being equal, I’ll pass on the skyrocketing BPA levels thank you very much).
While I got that going I took 2 local pasture raised cube steaks, floured them in whole wheat flour and browned in the cast iron skillet. Chopped them into little pieces and all the drippings and even the saucer of flour figuring it would thicken. I would later regret that move because I was going to someone who was gluten frees house for a potluck I thought but it was a chile supper and I was late so it didn’t matter anyway. Had a gluten free beer speaking of nostalgia. (Long term readers will remember I lost my papa and gluten free this and that was a frequent blog topic for awhile.)
Oh yeah, I fried the cube steaks in bacon grease, its not much meat for a giant pot of soup and the extra flavor didn’t hurt. I then added the giant kolrabi (well half of it, going to use it for chickpea potato salad with some russets for the work potluck), a couple of Michigan carrots, 3 Michigan red onions, a green pepper, half a bottle of homemade cherry wine (my sainted Mama taught me to add a little sweet to take the bite out of tomatoes), 1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley, some spinach, and purple cabbage. Whoop fresh green beans snapped real short, the black eyed peas I’d made at New Years, and a sizable amount of dried basil from the garden and Turkish oregano. At the end I added most of a can of black olives I had from Thanksgiving and some whole wheat spiral pasta.
It was yummy, pretty healthy too, and had a minestrone taste to it. Ended up adding a tsp of Better then Bullion too. Jeff and Becky are traveling and to hang out a few hours in the afternoon I thought soup and salad would be nice. I did an all local salad with market lettuce, spinach, purple cabbage, shredded carrot, heart nuts (a cross of Black and English walnuts) from the Michigan market, and Michigan apples.
I made a homemade dressing as well. I added apple cider vinegar to the last of the tahini in its own jar and some Michigan honey (boy you know local honey is cool but the honey that’s like the honey that I grew up on is just more honeyer to me), a little turmeric, a lot of freshly ground mustard (the kids enjoyed the mortar and pestle), maybe something else, I was gabbing with the guests.
Jeff brought a loaf of wheat/rye bread he’d made in the woods in a clay oven. He’s a history buff and reenactor who has a big 19th century or so camp out in Missouri every year at this time and we hang out for a bit before or after. Jeff hosted me on my first visit to Columbia and showed me the town I fell in love with. Its funny in the campaign I say “I love Columbia” and people always say “How long have you been here?”, its funny. He made it old school stretching the yeast, using only a packet for 14 pounds of flour like they would have in the olden days and stuff was expensive. They bought yeast from brewers who grew it.
Early in that paragraph I hopped over to Facebook and told a friend one of my favorite stories about my dad when she had mentioned David Bowie, here it is [One time a long time ago Dad called from the road and asked my mom to speak to me. He said, “Have you ever heard of David Bowie?” “Um, yeah Dad I’ve heard of him why.” “Well I went to get fuel last night about 3:00 in the morning and all the fuel pumps were blocked by these tour buses, so I went inside and I said ‘Hey whose buses are blocking the fuel pumps?’ and this anemic little fuck came up and said ‘They’re my buses I’m David Bowie'” Dad went on “So I said are you any relation to Jim Bowie? He had a knife that could cut his hair, you could use a knife like that.” This was 80s Bowie so his hair wasn’t that long but Dad was sensitive about stuff like that. A couple years ago I showed him The Man Who Fell to Earth and told him that’s who he’d told off.]
Well its getting late and I still have dishes to wash.
Sunny Saturday
Good morning world. Its a sunny and beautiful day here in Columbia Missouri and plan to spend the better part of it outside. The dogs got me up this morning and I have spent a fair amount of time dog butlering. Olive has been working on a bone outside and prefers to hang out. Fido likes to be with me. Neither likes being alone so Olive won’t come in and then barks and Fido has to go out to hang with her even though he doesn’t really want to sit in the grass and watch her eat an old bone and so barks to come inside and the whole cycle starts again.
I did get my dishes done, my laundry on the line (I don’t normally start laundry midweek but slopped some Mexican food on my shirt) and started another load (slopped more Mexican food on a second shirt at lunch yesterday, when it rains it pours). I’ve been to the market (local brown eggs, spinach, lettuce (I am going to eat more salads I tell you), and purple cabbage. Oops Olive gave her lonely bark, have to go let Fido out for five minutes. Wish it were a mite warmer and would just leave the backdoor open.
Yesterday Kevin came over after work and helped me collect signatures. He had a rough time of it, with no one ever having heard of me and him not being me made it a much tougher sell. I also cut us some bad turf trying to move up Texas which apparently has had some break ins or something some scared old Dude around the corner told me. He had run Kevin off and flagged me down when I came up the other side of the street a bit later. He doesn’t like strangers coming to the door especially after dark but as we talked it dawned on him that it gets dark early this time of year and it is the price you pay to live in a democracy and signed my petition. Had a lot of people just ignore me at their door and just continuing on to set their table or whatever.
I did meet a ventriloquist and a guy who operates a ministry for the homeless but neither was registered to vote. Got a card on the ventriloquist though, that might come in handy some time. Even for a rough night of it met some really nice people. I’ve enjoyed the canvassing more then I had anticipated, not having enjoyed it at all trying to raise money for Greenpeace back in the day. One of the low points of my life actually, trying to make enough money for Christmas presents on December evenings in Michigan not really feeling good about myself or where my life was at. This is very different.
Another candidate announced yesterday. Seems like a nice enough fellow but different from me. He didn’t spell out his views on anything being a blank slate ready to listen. Damn, he took my position. Still determining how aggressively I will campaign based on how the race shakes out. There is some concern in progressive circles of two progressives running and splitting the vote to make way for a pro-business candidate like Daryl Dudley who brought in saying the Pledge and wanted to put a giant flagpole on the top of Garagezilla the biggest boondoggle/eye sore in the history of the city. I’m not about that and only want to campaign if its going to help the city. I’m not really into self promotion and am already a little nostalgic for my anonymity. I’ll know more by the end of next week and I’ll keep you posted, faithful readers.
political self censor
I wrote a post yesterday and didn’t post it. Am I self censoring now that I am semi-officially pursuing a seat on the Columbia City Council. No, of course not. I am self censoring for quality. I want to have an interesting blog and I wrote a brief happenings of the day, which was kind of charming I think and then launched into laying out a platform. Getting messaged by the Trib asking for a call when I file my papers generated some pressure to get organized about my political agenda. I had dashed off a Facebook comment on that and used it as an outline. It was crappy and boring and hard to write and not up to what I want to do with the blog.
I get a lot of compliments on the style. I want it to just flow. I want my life to be like that to [too?]. Except for the number those words have stymied me my whole life except for brief periods when it just seems so obvious I’ve wondered how I’ve spent most of my life not knowing.
So what’s been going on. Pretty busy. Yesterday was my late night so I ran some errands in the morning. I sent back all the stuff I accidentally carried away from Michigan and also accrued my first campaign expense by getting some petitions copied in case I get some help on the signature gathering. That is going well and I am over half way to my 75 and I feel like the quality is good.
I tried a little Wednesday morning but a block of Garth showed me why canvassing is done in the evenings and weekends. A block of nobody homes and one wild eyed older woman barely holding a pit bull back shouting some unintelligible name was not home. Getting off at 8, well if I was doing it for a living I would go out until 9:00, later if I was in the flow or desperate. As a hobbyist I like the 5:30-8:00. Even moving towards 8 it feels late. Certainly couldn’t raise the gumption to go out and do it after a long day of work.
Today I met with some folks after work and had dinner at Agave. It was a pretty free form question and answer about the recent city controversies. I was familiar with all of them so reading the paper every day since I moved here has been a good thing. Not counting the opinions of the guy from the Third Ward and the Canadian I won the support of 2 out of 3. It would have been a feat but doable to have caught all three and I learned a lot in the exchange.
Keeping it free form and just try to answer the questions seems like might be a better way then to elucidate talking points and try to work them in. I know I’m sick of the worst excesses of that mentality and maybe being its antithesis is a strength. Its hard for me to want to be political.
I worked on a political campaign and got very turned off by politics. I didn’t like only telling the piece of the truth that helped you win. I didn’t like that narrow focus of a political win and the gamesmanship of it just felt wrong and dirty. I won’t use people or even look at everyone from the lens of what can they do for me.
After dinner I gathered more signatures. Nothing that funny. Leslie Lane is full of characters. I see how I ended up here, I fit right in. Most folks are real nice. The scared ones though, the ones who won’t come to their door, the one who locked their car when they saw me walking up the street, it really breaks my heart. I wish I had a way to tell them there is no need for fear, we can trust each other, we’re all in this together.
2nd ward city council
So my life appears to have gotten a lot more interesting. Its been weird adjusting to an empty house with Dad gone, and John and Kevin moved on with their lives. I have kind of appreciated the silence and aloneness, being social for a living. I was looking forward to getting a little more productive around the house and being more physically active with the dog. But I read the paper.
Last weekend I saw my city council rep Jason Thornhill in the paper with an article that nobody is running for city council in the second ward. Hmmm. They had contingency plans of write in elections if no one applies to be on the ballot or even Jason out of the goodness of his heart said he would continue to serve if no one ran. That seems insane and so I thought, well shit, I am just sitting around with the dog why don’t I do it. I had cancelled my satellite, my DVD player broke and only one channel comes in so its not like I can sit around and watch TV. If I blog more, I’ll start losing subscribers.
So I posted on Facebook, “should I run for 2nd ward city council? Nobody else is.” People liked it and it got 20 comments. Only one cautionary “It’ll cut into your reading time.” But I’m not that into reading anymore, except for comic books (mid 70s Spider Man now). The novel I’m reading has footnotes, that’s kind of wrong in some ways.
It was a holiday weekend so I got to sit on the idea without any way to move it forward. Did hash it around with Trevor and he put me on to a ward map and pushed me to call the city clerk instead of just dropping by as had been my plan. That was a good move. She was very cool. Don’t tell me anything, the media calls every day to see what’s up. My address and phone number will become a public record. Might be OK, right now no one calls and I pay a chunk of change for the phone. I can always just turn off the ringers.
I feel like my address is already an open book. Every drunk and drug addict in town knows where I live because I live a block from the substance abuse treatment agency I work at. I just try to be nice to people and I feel safe.
At lunch I picked up the forms and talked to the city clerk. She was cool and organized. My lunch runs 11:30-12:30 so I can get business done if I’m lucky and I was today. You only need 50 signatures to get on the ballot but you can only submit 75. That makes me nervous because I don’t know if I’ll make the cut off to get them checked and have time to get more. I got 25 today, and turned one down because I didn’t want to go back out which I regret now so I feel pretty good about it. If I knocked them all out by Thursday night I could maybe find out in time to get a few more Tuesday, the cut off day. It would be a nice sign of organizational strength to do it. I have been careful to be clear I need registered voters and have steered clear of rentals when I know of them.
It was surprisingly fun collecting signatures. I went to Henry’s first and he showed me his remodeling project. Our houses were built by the same developer so his copper pipes welded to steel nipples corrosion problem could be an issue for me. I don’t know. John and Mary were next and then I had to hit strangers. It gets dark early so some people thought it was a little sketchy but most were really nice. Some had me in and rounded up the family to sign. At one house there was a dog party so the pug and chihuahua were wearing tutus. The 17 year old demanded an anti-chihuahua policy to win his vote. I had to stand mute and took the political stance that I was pro dog.
An older woman gave me the third degree and couldn’t figure out where I’d seen her before, it came out she was animal control and I got to thank her for her service. The Shaws offered me ginger ale and we got caught up and reintroduced. The guy in his boxers with the pistol in the waste band is now my Facebook friend. I went to almost every house on my street and introduced myself. It was really really cool.
“Are you a Republican or a Democrat?” was the most common question. “I am an independent” I would say which was never good enough so sometimes I would add “I lean to the left though” although once I said “well, I’m actually an anarchist but that seems too complicated to talk about on someone’s stoop”.
i didn’t tell anyone i’m casual about punctuation and capitalization if someone is not paying me to write. the stipend doesn’t kick in for two years so its half a volunteer gig. sacrifice for the community. i’ll pay it but i won’t pay muting my autthentic voice or pretending to be something i’m not.
People want more cops and people want less cops. Maybe its what side of the street your on. Some people want to know what you stand for, and the neighborhood watch was alerted. someone was “canvassing the neighborhood”. He had a cap and had a beard and I’d never heard of his address. He said he was collecting signatures for 2nd ward City Council.
more blessed then lucky
I have to say I kind of love the three day weekend. Its closer to the 14 hour work week I dream of. Hosting a party yesterday really made it seem like another Saturday and so today feels like a Sunday, minus the morning paper. Its cooling off and still breezy. My one regret from the party was that it was to windy for a fire. But the sun is shining so it seems more brisk then cold. I spent some time outside puttering in the yard. I planted the last of my discount tulips. I put them near the house by the rain barrel at the West end in the back where its sunny. One of the secrets of winter gardening is work in the sun and I was low and out of the wind.
I also tried to rake. I finished the last little bit of the front yesterday but it was way too windy. The fence row was in the sun and out of the wind so I cleared that out. The compost could use the green from all the ivy I pulled out. If I get anymore gumption I’ll try something in doors. Like re-caulking the bath tub. I am listening to some music, my Wangbuckler stuff. Its kind of charming, if I do say so myself. John Fenn is really awesome. I need to contact him and see if he is going to put that stuff online so I can link it here. Its strange listening to yourself, oddly compelling.
For having a dinner party not a lot of mess to clean up and the house is pretty clean. Been sprawling into the empty bedrooms. Why not? At some point I guess I’ll have to reshuffle someday but my as well use the space. The party was pretty fun, good conversation. People came in little waves so we all got to eat around the table but in shifts. Everything came out pretty well.
I made pulled pork. I’d gotten a pork roast from the Coopers at the last Columbia market and I used a cup of market salsa, a cup of Sticky Pig barbecue sauce, green pepper, 2 red onions (Monroe market), stick of celery, lot of garlic (some from Monroe), tsp cumin seed, tsp coriander seed, tbsp chili powder and tbsp paprika so I had a nice local content and it was tasty. Cooked it until it fell off the bone, pulled it removed fat and bone and let it cook another hour or three depending on when you came to the party. I through the bone out back and Fido got to it first and ate it. I was kind of proud of him keeping it from Olive and have a lot of faith in both of them (2 dogs/1 bone can be serious trouble).
I’ve probably mentioned my family always ate pork on New Years so you root ahead. If you eat chicken you’ll scratch and beef leaves you standing chewing your cud. My sister made fish I saw so she could swim ahead. Healthier if not luckier then the other white meat. I also made black eyed pea/potato salad as I think black eyed peas on New Years is a southern thing. They’re not my favorite bean and hard to make good vegetarian so I didn’t try and used this recipe adapted for chick peas I saw in the paper. I peeled some and chopped potatoes (Yukon golds and a couple Russets [best thing I could find at Mosers which is not where you want to buy potatoes]) and boiled them til almost soft drained and let cool. Earlier I had cooked my black eyed peas with a little salt, dash of cayenne & turmeric just to boost the flavor a bit. Then I mixed that with 1/2 cup or so chopped parsley out of the garden, the juice and grated peal of a large lemon, also had cooked maybe 4 tbsps garlic in 3 tbsps olive oil and cooked on lowest heat for 6 minutes with my garlic pieces pretty big and added some freshly ground pepper. Not to shabby if I do say so myself and healthier then the usual, although I may add Miracle Whip to the leftovers.
My other dish was noodles which Asians eat on the lunar new year for luck but 1/1 is close enough. I called it savory peach and cashew noodles but it should be called noodle dumb ass. Harry always called made up stuff from what you have on hand “dumb ass”. I actually like to cook this way, brings out my creativity. I made a sauce out most a pint of peach butter (a butter has more fruit then sugar, unlike jams and jellies, healthier and almost as yummy but doesn’t keep like jelly so I was eager to use it), with Braggs, fried carrot, shallots, green pepper, 5 dried Thai chili peppers, and a chipotle bullion cube. I thickened it with the last of Kevin’s Thanksgiving rue and added a good splash of sesame oil at the end. I mixed it with 1/2 egg noodles and 1/2 whole wheat egg noodles because Mosers didn’t have Asian noodles. Oh yeah and some canned cashews, they were in their too.
The eggnog was special. I started with 11 Lacunae eggs (the shells are a pastel green, very distinctive) one was cracked and with a raw egg dish you’re already risking salmonella so I set aside which allowed me to show it off. I whisked the yolks and then slowly added 1 1/2 cups sugar. Mixed in a quart of milk and a quart of heavy whipping cream as well as 2 cups Wild Turkey, 1/2 cup of spiced rum, 2 cups E&J brandy, mixed that up and put it in a giant pitcher. After dinner I beat the egg whites until they were half way to custard and mixed that in best I could in my now two pitchers (I need an enormous bowl to make a full recipe, next year I’ll do a half batch). Then I beat another 1/2 quart of heavy whipping cream until it was most of the way to whipped cream and mixed that up. Fresh grated nutmeg for a topper and delicious. Not the heaviest nog I’d ever had but for carrying all that liquor it was pretty thick.
2012 is off to a pretty good start though to be honest I feel more blessed then lucky.
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