Eating street food in Kyoto in 2023

Who’s Kate?

When I was six years old, my teacher asked everyone in the class what they wanted to be when they grew up. The answers were varied and ambitious — an aspiring marine biologist, a wannabe astronaut, even a hopeful teacher (I think my teacher liked that kid the best). When it got to me, my answer was that I wanted to get paid to draw pictures. The specifics have changed a little, but I’ve never been able to give up the playground of a blank sheet of paper for long.

I’m one of those people with eternally shifting hobbies. These days I love making stained glass, playing Baldur’s Gate 3 and Balatro, and mixing increasingly bitter cocktails. When it’s not the frigid Iowa winter, I love growing vegetables (I’m an Iowa state-certified Master Gardener!) and biking, usually with my dog in a wagon behind me. I travel as often and as far as possible.

I’m a St. Louis native, but have lived in Des Moines for the last decade. I live in a very cute little storybook bungalow with my husband, Jimmy (my high school sweetheart), our dog Luna, and four dozen houseplants.

Questions I would answer on Hot Ones

  • At Pear Deck, I was one of the two founders of the Bureau of Birthdays, a very secretive and shadowy organization tasked with making our coworkers’ birthdays excellent. We spent weeks researching their favorite things, pets, inside jokes, and more to assemble the perfect birthday package. Favorite gifts included a custom pillow shaped like a coworker’s cat, a mug depicting our mascot as Jack Nicholson in the Shining, and merch from a particular Midwestern gas station that the recipient had moved away from and missed.

  • As far as I can remember, a book of my dad’s extremely dad-like jokes, stories and songs. It was designed in Microsoft Word, with the finest WordArt my ten-year-old self could conjure up (I was much more fond of drop shadows back then). I ambitiously called it “Volume I” but I don’t think I ever got around to Volume II.

  • A pair of very affectionate, house-trained rats named Arial and Helvetica. These days, I keep it more conventional, with a beloved senior mystery mutt named Luna.

  • I broke my ankle flying a kite. The kite was designed and built for a Foundations of Design class and was required to fly for our final grade. The flight naturally took place on a windless day, I had to sprint across a soccer field, and I found a mole hole with my foot.

    I got a C.

  • “soul crushing bed rotting tuesday evening.” What can I say, we all have our days.