Sleeping Gato/Centro/Montevideo Taking a well needed rest

    There are plenty of dogs in this city, but thousands of cats too. Cats don’t make a lot of noise, take up a lot of space, or make crazy demands. They live as they have for thousands of years – hunting, sleeping, making reproductions of themselves, adapting to human civilization for which they have no interest or care. Walking the area around Independence Square, close to an area called The Centro, this gato catches my eye. He is stretched out on a  window ledge with bars on one side of him and closed windows on the other. It is certain he is asleep and his owner has closed windows before leaving the house. When this guy wakes and sees he is trapped he will just turn over and go back to sleep. For this moment he is in cat dreamland where cats have all the mice they want and are always successful in the hunt. In the city, dogs and cats live with humans and  have adapted. Now, dogs don’t do much hunting. But cats, when push comes to shove, can become fearsome predators. Whether they love the little tuna bits their owners spoon out of a can into a little dish for them is likely. Whether they like a fat mouse or a big bird is more than likely. I don’t know where this big boy was all night, but this morning he isn’t going anywhere. When his owners return they will open the window. He will jump down and brush against their legs. They will laugh and pet him and let him out into a little back yard in the middle of a big big city where he will wait in a corner for something flying, creeping, or crawling to come close enough, so he can appropriate it.