And you thought Monday Cookies had disappeared? Not a chance. I may not bake and decorate that often but I can’t stay out of the kitchen. I just can’t. When I first saw Linda Davick’s illustration of this blue-haired girl with red eyeglasses, I swooned. I fell in love with her immediately. She was so [...]

Finally, I finished the Blue Dachshund painting. I followed the original cookie design pretty closely, although in this version, the doggie is a bit chubbier. Or as I like to think, healthier.
I have one more cookie I’d like to transform into a painting, either the Cool Dude or the Bulldog.
Suggestions are welcome!

Hello, again. If I don’t look familar to you, I’ll remind you: the name’s Patch. The last time I was here, Mari stuffed me into some multicolor jacket that made me look more like Liberace’s son than the class act cat that I truly am. Well, that was tame compared to what she did to [...]

It continues to remain super hot here in Southern California. I’m not heat tolerant. Never have been. So why do I live in Southern California, where summer usually starts in June and goes on through the end of October? Sometimes I ask myself how this all happened. Sometimes, on days like this, when the mercury [...]

I was saddened to hear of Walter Cronkite’s death. Though I never saw live the broadcasts he anchored following the Kennedy assassination, or the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., or Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic walk on the moon, I eventually studied his work and grew to admire him. He clearly loved being [...]

It’s July 14 - le quatorze Juillet - Bastille Day in France! France’s national holiday commemorates the storming of the Bastille at the start of the French Revolution. When I was a kid growing up in France, I thought this was the most awesome event of the ever. Years later, after covering the G7 Summit [...]

We had some major tree-chopping and trimming done over the weekend. The oleander that runs along the west side of the house had grown out of control - nearly 15 feet tall! - and blocked the living room windows to the point where the room felt like a dungeon. I had the gardeners chop them [...]

One of my favorite sections of the New York Times is the Science section. Maybe it’s the geek in me, maybe it’s the fact that I nearly flunked science and biology classes in high school and how I want somehow to understand science better, maybe it’s just that I’m weird. I don’t know. But when [...]

This is actually an oldie but goodie of mine (circa early 2007). I had just read a report about how frogs in parts of Costa Rica’s rain forest were dying off in alarming numbers, a sign that scientists said was concrete proof of global warming. When amphibians start to disappear in large numbers, it usually [...]

Well hello there. The name’s Patch. You can call me Mr. Patch. I usually don’t sit for portraits because I’m far too busy for such trivial pursuits. But my master - I’ll call him Master G - apparently sent a photo of me in one of my lazier moments to Mari, and look what she [...]