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Rest In Peace,Tiki-Kate |
mieko
Tiki Socialite
Joined: May 01, 2006
Posts: 531
From: San Diego
|  Posted: 2010-09-23 2:17 pm Permalink
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On 2010-09-23 13:28, Cammo wrote:
(Please copy mine and add/change anything you'd like to this)
Kate had a job as an order fulfillment manager at a surgical supply warehouse. (Correct me if I’m wrong, please!) This always struck me as a classic 1950’s job, working in a bare-bones building under fluorescent lights, typing all day. You’d expect Rock Hudson to walk in and start complaining about year end quotas, with big zig-zag charts.
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Kate moved jobs and had most recently been working at Kohl's in their distribution center. I think she had been there between 2-3 years. She loved her job and her co-workers a lot.
Kohl's medical coverage for Kate was incredible. The month long hospital stay she had in December/January cost Kate a few hundred dollars out of pocket. Most of her visits and so many of the drugs she was on were mostly covered by insurance. Even though she had missed working for most of 2010, they were super supportive of getting her on disability, and making sure her insurance coverage didn't lapse. Her sister even had a call on Monday with someone from the company letting her know that Kate would still be getting a paycheck while on hospice. She had an on-site nurse at her work that she could visit for naps when she got too tired. I will always support Kohl's for how they treated Kate.
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Kate went to EVERY Tiki event. At one point you could tell if it was a good event simply because Kate went to it. She was legendary for driving for hours all across California, Hawaii, Nevada, the Blue Ridge Mountains, just to swill a drink and discuss matchbooks. This is all the more amazing, because she was a very shy person at heart.
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When I visited Kate, I would often think about the 2 hour drive to get up there. I could rarely get up there before 11am. But Kate was almost always the first person at a chop, getting up as early as she needed to, and driving as long as needed to get there. I always knew that if she could get to chops, then I could manage to go see her.
She really was so very shy, and so nervous about meeting people.
Kate wasn't her real first name, and none of her family call her Kate.
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tropicaldesignsbymieko.com
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ookoo lady
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 24, 2004
Posts: 779 | Posted: 2010-09-23 2:26 pm Permalink
A visit to Oceanic Arts was ALWAYS followed by lunch at The Bahooka.
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Jungle Trader
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jan 04, 2003
Posts: 3691
From: Trader's Jungle Outpost, Turlock, Ca.
| Posted: 2010-09-23 3:02 pm Permalink
 Goodbye Kate, I'll see you on the other side
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bamalamalu
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Mar 20, 2006
Posts: 384 | Posted: 2010-09-23 3:05 pm Permalink
My deepest sympathy to all of Kate's many friends and her family. I didn't know Kate, but have felt incredibly saddened by all of this. I hope you are all able to enjoy all the memories with less sorrow soon.
Aloha, Tiki-Kate.
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Moki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jun 08, 2004
Posts: 357
From: San Diego
| Posted: 2010-09-23 3:24 pm Permalink
Kate touched many of us in many special ways. She was always a fun person to be around. Reading this thread is bittersweet. I have to keep stopping to dry my eyes.
Kate attended the baby shower for my first born and on the way stopped at an estate sale (she could never pass one without stopping, but who can?) She found a small vintage hawaiian shirt for our yet unborn little one. She was so excited to have found it!! Two years later he is just fitting into it and he LOVES it. Everytime he wears it I think of her and smile and I always will. When he outgrows it, which will be too soon, I'll save it for his little sister.
Keep remembering the good times.....Keep remembering the good times.
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Sophista-tiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Sep 13, 2005
Posts: 1598
From: Seattle WA
| Posted: 2010-09-23 3:40 pm Permalink
Mieko, Good stories about Kate, especially about her shyness of meeting new people. That totally explains our awkward first meet at Oasis 09. shy person meets shy person. But I made a point of finding her and introducing myself. She was one of the first people on TC to get a piece of art from me and I wanted to thank her.
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MadDogMike
Grand Member (3 years) 
Joined: Mar 30, 2008
Posts: 6412
From: The Anvil of the Sun
| Posted: 2010-09-23 4:29 pm Permalink
BigTikiDude, Cammo, Mieko - thanks for the stories, I needed that 
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Cammo wrote
She has a bumper sticker - "I Brake for Tiki-Kate's House"
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I saw that bumper sticker on Buzzy's thread today. Probably been in hundreds of Buzz's pix and I never saw it before.
Kate hooked me up with a recipe for Disneyland's Bengal Beef kabobs when I was a newbie, long before I knew who she was.
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pdrake
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jan 13, 2006
Posts: 1764
From: las vegas
| Posted: 2010-09-23 4:38 pm Permalink
Her entire mug collection was destroyed in a famous incident when a stolen car ended a high speed chase with the police by driving directly into her home, hitting the wall holding the mugs first. I’d still like to see pictures of this, Kate must have taken pictures. The whole collection was replaced piece by piece with insurance money.
twice! she lived at the end of a "T".
kate's license plates read, "tikigrl"
kate had a squirrel living in her crawl space and she didn't mind.
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tikiyaki
Grand Member (5 years) 
Joined: May 18, 2004
Posts: 2677
From: The Exotic Port of REDONDO BEACH, CA
| Posted: 2010-09-23 4:43 pm Permalink
All amazing examples of her love for the Urban Archaeology. I will add that, if you want to see even more examples of her great contributions to this site,
just go to Locating Tiki....so many great expeditions her and Boris would go on to find former tiki temples...
apartments, restaurants....tons of photos detailing all the existing remnants of of tiki in these places....including ads from old phone books found in libraries, and all kinds of other stuff. So thorough.
These were always my favorite Tiki Kate posts.
Those, and the one time she posted a menu cover for Wan Q, and I asked her to post pics of the rest of the menu, and she did...just cos I asked.
http://www.tikiroom.com/tikicentral/bb/viewtopic.php?topic=24925&forum=2&vpost=459123&hilite=Wan%20Q
Thanx Kate for all the great content and contributions to this site...we all lose out from your passing.
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kingstiedye
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Oct 05, 2005
Posts: 1229
From: sackatomato
| Posted: 2010-09-23 4:59 pm Permalink
aloha my friend.
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kick_the_reverb
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Jul 17, 2002
Posts: 573
From: Originally Israel, now Oceanside, CA
| Posted: 2010-09-23 5:02 pm Permalink
Very sad news  I have been out of town yesterday and just heard about this. I received the initial shock a few days ago when I learned she was going into hospice. I thought her battle was very brave, and it was quite a jolt to get a reality kick, and realize that sometimes even the bravest battles don't win the war.
My deepest condolences to her family and friends who had been with her to the very end.
And if we're bringing back the porcelan god story at Ona's, then I guess I'll have to add she always blamed my drinks on that, and we used to joke about it every time we met.
Farewell Kate,
Ran
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WSWahine
Tiki Centralite
Joined: Jun 26, 2008
Posts: 84
From: My 50's ranch in South Sac
| Posted: 2010-09-23 5:23 pm Permalink
So, so sad.
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meega
Tiki Centralite
Joined: Aug 19, 2007
Posts: 39
From: Pewaukee WI.
| Posted: 2010-09-23 6:53 pm Permalink
Condolences to her family, as well as her friends here on TC. I never had the pleasure of knowing her, but I did have the pleasure of seeing her extensive contributions to this forum as well as Ooga-Mooga. Her smile seemed to be the subject of an awful lot of photos posted on this forum from a lot of events. I hope the powers that be see that her contributions become a permanent part of this sight.
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4WDtiki
Tiki Socialite
Joined: Aug 03, 2004
Posts: 1729
From: Omao, Kauai
| Posted: 2010-09-23 7:50 pm Permalink
I was looking at Kate's facebook page today, and saw this great photo of her and Billy the Crud.
Billy sometimes rubbed Kate the wrong way, and they had had kind of a falling out, but that changed when they crossed paths room-crawling at Oasis 9, as evidenced in this shot:
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tiki leki
Tiki Centralite
Joined: Jul 02, 2006
Posts: 86
From: Point Loma
| Posted: 2010-09-23 8:07 pm Permalink
I had the great pleasure to meet Kate on several occasions from chops on Mission Bay to Tiki Oasis. I'm so sad and will miss her greatly.
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