Cat Update -- Cat in a Tree!

I've taken to going over to the Jardines Botanicos, the botanical gardens nearby, to enjoy the natural beauty, and more importantly to hang around with the cats. Yesterday I was over there, crouched over petting a cat by the fence, when a guy on the other side of the fence spots me as a manly cat lover, and tells me that there's a cat stuck in a tree down a little ways. So I put on my cat-rescuing hero cap and went to investigate.

And sure enough, there she was, a cat in a tree:


As might be expected, Kitty was none too happy about her predicament, and she was being pretty vocal. Unfortunately, kitty was pretty far up in the tree, maybe 12-15 feet? But, the tree was quite close to the fence, which is pretty tall but has a rail running across the top:

You can't really see her in the picture, but kitty's in the Y in this tree. You can tell how high the fence is from the pic, though -- it wasn't something you could just climb up on. So I dragged over a garbage can and hoisted myself up, standing on the little rail at the top of the fence, leaning against the tree.

I could just reach up with 1 arm to the kitty. Kitty's kind of freaked out, but glad to see me. I ended up petting the cat for a long time, trying to get her to calm down, to earn her trust. I'm not sure how I can get her down to the ground -- it will be hard enough just to get myself down from atop this fence, let alone get down with a freaked out cat. But I'm thinking that if I get the cat, some passer-by with some courage will take the cat from me.

So I try to get the cat with the 1 arm, but, alas, Kitty is having none of it. I tried to grab her under the belly and lift, but she dug her claws into the tree like her life depended on it. Passers-by were stopping occasionally to look at the spectacle, and to give me advice in spanish that for the most part I couldn't understand.

I stood on the fence about 8 or 10 minutes, a long time to be perched up 7 or 8 feet off the ground on a teeny railing. I could have used force and just ripped the cat from the tree, but lord knows what the cat would have done to me, and for sure having a snarling scratching cat in my hand would dramatically increase my chances of falling off of my precarious perch.

So, heroism was not to be. Kitty, I tried, but you're on your own. Before I lowered myself down, which wasn't so easy, I took one picture of the kitty from up on the fence. Here she is, looking at me, thinking, oh hell, where are you going?

I left the garbage can next to the tree, hoping that would catch the attention of people who worked in the park and they'd notice the cat.

Later in the day I did worry about the cat. And today, I went back to the park to see if she was still there, or if I could find her. And, good news, I did find her, out of the tree, hanging around on the lawn. She did look a little scared, but I hung around and pet her for a long time. It was sweet.

Parque Centenario

I love big city parks. I don't think you can have a great big city without good parks, or at least adequate parks. What makes a city great is public spaces, places where you go to be with your fellow man. For me, this is where civility is born, in public spaces.

A few days ago I went to Parque Centenario, one of the more attractive public spaces I've been to in Buenos Aires:

It's a nice park, I think it's been refurbished relatively recently. There's a pond in the middle that people stroll around, and there's even duck-feeding to be done:


And there are some fine lawns and trees and benches, which is pretty much the prescription for an urban park. These pictures were taken on december 31 -- it was a nice warm day, and there were lots of people in the park hanging around.

Parque Centenario is interesting because it's very round, with the lake more or less in the center. And there aren't any good landmarks among the surrounding buildings, so it's quite easy to get directionally disoriented. And the roundness really doesn't help when you're trying to navigate the surrounding streets on a bicycle. The roads go off at all sorts of angles, so it's hard to keep your bearings. I've gotten slightly turned around near here several times.

Just for fun, here's a snap from Google Earth of Parque Centenario. You can see the patchwork of streets running off in all directions. No grid here, that's for sure, something I'll address in a later post on cycling in BA.

Google Earth is so fun -- I'm always trying (and mostly failing) to navigate my cycling trips using Google Earth. I'll write more about this in a later post.