Help Kate Hatcher's Family

Kate Hatcher, the chair of SpikeCon (Westercon 72/NASFiC 2019) died in March after a battle with pneumonia. Her partner Ben and daughter Ireland have urgent financial needs and Rick Kovalcik has launched a Kickstarter to help them out, including pledging to pay the Kickstarter fees up to the initial campaign amount. (That didn't stop me from including an extra 5% for that purpose with my donation.)



This is the full photo which the one on the Kickstarter is using. I took this of Kate shortly after she received the Gavel of Westercon.

Kate was very good to me, Lisa, and Kuma as we were the co-Fan Guests of Honor of Westercon 72, and she even was understanding of us splitting our time between our tasks as FGoHs and also running a Westercon bid. I'm very grateful to her, and have been happy to contribute toward this fundraiser.

Home Cooking, Episode 2

Tonight's dinner, eaten while watching an episode of Time Team on YouTube, was pork in tomato sauce over Barilla whole grain rotini pasta. Lisa used half a package of ground pork, browned in olive oil and Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce, with a can of Giorgio mushroom pieces and stems. The base sauce is Di Napoli Classico Tomato & Basil no sugar added. Lisa also added a small can of tomato paste and added additional basil and oregano. There was enough for our dinner tonight and my lunch tomorrow (and maybe another thereafter).

After dinner we went out for a walk, which I really need to take after eating that pasta. The walk was delayed a bit by a phone call from my father. I don't talk to Dad very often, but we spent half an hour or so talking about how we're all getting along. The isolation isn't bothering him as he's got ten acres of land on which he lives near Lake Oroville, the maintaining of which is a full time job (he's a retired forest ranger).