In addition to going to the park, Cimbi's other summer ritual is shedding. (Actually, this is a year-round ritual, but it picks up to maddening levels as the weather warms.) Despite being a short haired cat with a very clean appearance, her fur ends up on the furniture, as wispy balls in corners, in our ears, eyes and noses, and on our clothes.

Sometimes it's a conversation starter (I was once asked by someone on the subway what kind of pet I had based on a glance at my shirt), but mostly it's a time consuming pain to clean up.

Our weekly cleaning ritual goes something like this: (1) sweep entire apartment (2) vacuum up hair sweepings, as they can escape from the dust pan (3) Swiffer furniture and floors (4) vacuum corners and cracks- then wave transparent vacuum canister in front of Cheryl asking "can you believe the cat still has any fur on it?" (5) wash bed coverings. This usually takes about three hours, but given Cheryl's allergies and how much we enjoy Cimbi, it's worth it.

However, a few months ago I wondered about better strategies for attacking the problem at the source. I reasoned: If I was to really brush the cat, not take a few simple swipes with the Love Glove (our rubber tipped pet brushing tool) before Cimbi decided to jump off my lap and run away, maybe I could cut down a bit on the amount of fur I needed to clean up around the place.

My first 15 minute session yielded the fur nugget seen above. This is not a loose collection of fur, but a hard mass of cat hair that does not loose shape when setting an unabridged dictionary on top of it. So I saved it in the take out container it is seen resting on, thinking that with regular cat brushing, I would only be blessed with one of these things.

I was wrong.

I now collect about one cat fur nugget of equal size a week. Stored in the same take out container, I am wondering what to do with my growing collection. I thought about putting them in ravioli and inviting people over for dinner. ("Oh, I'm so embarrassed; I don't know how that got in there. Please, try a different piece.") Or making a bizarro Cimbi who would not tear up the shades at 5am or bite us upon returning home. Knitting a cat hair sweater is ruled out, as it seems far too time consuming.

Whatever I do decide to do with the fur nuggets, I will have more time to do it, as we have been able to drastically cut back in our cleaning now that Cimbi is regularly brushed.