Yesterday was a rough day, I'm still mourning the loss of my sweet baby cat Ginger. I wanted a distraction, so I decided to tackle the mountain of books at my bedside. Every one has a mountain of books that they haven't read yet...right? RIGHT?! (Please don't make me feel alone.) I needed to read something easy and light so I picked up this book Ghosts. It was part of a prize pack I won from the The Bogeyman's Closet podcast. They are Facebook friends of mine and always post funny horror things and giveaways, so you should follow them!

Ghosts is a sweet graphic cartoon book about a family that moves closer to the coastline because the youngest has cystic fibrosis and it would be better for her lungs. Little do they know that the town is filled with happy ghosts that all culminates in the local Dia de los Muertos celebration! It covers the awkwardness of being a preteen, and the stress of caring for siblings, BUT don't get me wrong this book isn't a downer - on the contrary - the writing is positive, the illustrations are bright, and it ends on a happy note with them getting a cat! Highly recommend for all ages.

I just wanted to THANK YOU for following my blog. I've slowed down writing them a little, but I'm still here! This year for my anniversary I'm doing TWO giveaways!!!

Giveaway 1 ~ WAX MELTS

Included is...

1. Ceramic Wax Melt Burner

2. Melts-  Ritual & Venom- Smoked Sage & Black Berry/ Sweet Cinnamon

                Moonbeam-Moon of My Life

                Terror Tarts-Follow the Rules

3. Stabbed Heart Iron On Patch

4. 2 Fairy Decals

5. Bone Zippy Bag

6. Halloween Pop Socket

Giveaway 2 ~ PUSHEEN/ CAT

Included is...

1. Pusheen Yoga Towel Mat

2. Pusheen Eye Mask

3. Pusheen Fanny Pack

4. Set of 4 Pusheen Holiday Pins

5. New Hello Kitty Gloves

6. Pusheen Mini Vacuum

7. Dream Pets Snoozie Suzie Plush

All you have to do to enter...

~ Like the Fluffy the Vampire Slayer Facebook Page.

~ Comment on the Giveaway post which one you would like to win, or both! i.e. "WAX MELTS", "PUSHEEN CAT", "WAX MELTS & PUSHEEN CAT".

~ Share the Fluffy the Vampire Slayer Facebook page.

Good luck and I'll be picking two winners at random on Monday, March 8 and they'll be contacted via Facebook.

Well, the end is here. I started watching Supernatural when I started blogging almost four years ago. It's been with me since Fluffy's beginning, and it's fitting that we said Goodbye to Ginger this week AND the Winchesters. She loved Sam and sitting with me to watch Supernatural. This last part of the 15th season is 7 episodes. I was hoping for Crowley's return, one last glimpse of Rowena, or even a happy ending for Dean with Lisa and Ben. Nope. We got none of that.

Little Ginger with her Sam doll.

In summary....The beginning of this second part has a lot of pop culture references to Scooby Doo, Highway to Heaven, Baby Yoda, Knight Rider, and Goonies. It makes it a little lighter because if you recall Jack is being mentored by Death/ Billie to kill God/ Chuck and knows in doing so he is going to die too. He's a da bomb ~ no literally ~ he's going to blow up. Sam and Dean try to recruit Amara to work with them in killing her brother God/ Chuck. She does help them keep him captive. 

Death/ Billie.

They find out Death/ Billie wants to become the "new God" and return things to the proper order. That means the dead stay dead and anyone that has been resurrected will go back to being dead. i.e. Sam, Dean and many of the people they spent their lives saving. That's really not good. Hunters and friends start disappearing and they blame Death/ Billie, only it's really God/ Chuck making everyone disappear, until the only people left are Sam, Dean, and Jack. 

Jack gets sent to the "empty" to explode so he doesn't hurt anyone on earth. We find out Cas made a deal with the "empty" to return when he finds true happiness. His love of his family on earth has made him truly happy. Cas and Death/ Billie get sucked into the "empty". They are gone forever. Jack is back on earth.

Jack feels a presence that's still alive and it's a dog, that looks like my old dog I had growing up. They also find Michael. God/ Chuck brings back Satan, Michael kills Satan, God kills Michael, and God beats up Sam and Dean. Are you with me so far? Meanwhile Jack is absorbing tons of power along the way from God/ Chuck, so much so that God/ Chuck ends up without any power and is made human again, Jack becomes the new God and repopulates the world, and works in harmony with Amara.

Jack as the new God is his signature jean jacket, now white.

The last episode brings the show full circle. I'd say if you only want to watch one episode of these last 7, watch this one. Season 15 Episode 20 "Carry On". Dean gets to keep the dog, there's pie, the Winchester's dads journal is brought out, an old vamp from the first season is brought back. Sam and Dean do their vamp nest hunting routine and Dean quietly gets impaled and dies leaving Sam to "carry on". Dean goes to heaven where he's reunited with Bobby and we see time pass very quickly on earth. Sam has a son named Dean, but does he marry Eileen?! We don't know. Then Sam dies and is reunited with Dean in heaven.

Doggo named Miracle and Dean.

That's pretty much all of it in a nutshell. There's a lot of development in Dean's character leading up to his death, he becomes more sensitive and really gets in touch with his emotions. He's not just comedy relief with hard edges anymore, and Sam gets the family he always wanted. 

You can see my thoughts on the other seasons 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, 7&8, 9&10, 11& 12 , 13, 14, and 15 (the first part).

Ginger's health has been in decline since about 2017. We really thought she was going to go then, so in a way I was kind of prepared, but little did I know how truly heartbreaking it is. Then she had a bout with acute pancreatitis in 2018, so again we thought her time was up when we went against the vet's orders to bring her home, but her last day was Friday, February 5, 2021. 

Early last week she started throwing up all her food. She couldn't keep anything down, so we took her to the vet. We knew she had kidney disease and some other problems. She was still active and bright eyed. They gave her fluids and tried to get her to keep food down. She had loose poops all over. xrays showed nothing was wrong, no obstructions, just immediately throwing up after everything she put in her mouth. 

Thursday we brought her home hoping to have a few days left with her, and we scheduled her final vet appointment for Monday (or today), but in true Ginger fashion she showed us she needed to go sooner, so we had to move her visit to Friday! Thursday night we watched her favorite show Supernatural. (I've been blogging about Supernatural for a long time and Ginger was always my lap buddy. We needed to watch the last part of the last season.) She always loved Sam's gentle voice and even though she couldn't hear him I think she found comfort in it because it was the only time Thursday night she wasn't restless.

Ginger's last Sam viewing. (Yes, my TV room is a mess right now and we have a clunker TV.)

After watching TV, I wrapped her in a towel and brought her upstairs to bed. I sat up with her all night long and while she was still sitting on me at 3:30am I wrote this...

When Andrew and I bought our house we were so excited because that meant we could get a cat...or cats. Shortly after moving we casually went to PetSmart looking at cats up for adoption. They have cats from the SPCA Serving Erie County and that's what we were looking for. We knew we didn't want a kitten because everyone wants a kitten and they are easily adopted out. We wanted an older cat with a set personality.

There were several cats there with stories that pulled at your heart strings, but we ended up with two cats that picked us. I saw this tiny two-ish year old cat with pretty coloring and asked to hold her. She immediately started purring loudly. She was probably scared but I took it as a sign that she picked me to be her owner. Her name was Cinnabon, or as I like to call her Ginger. Andrew connected with a chubby black cat that was abandoned with yellow teeth. (He was likely abandoned because he ate them out of house and home.) His name was Skoal or as we now call him Vicktor, but his story is for another day. That cold rainy night we unexpectedly came home with two cats ~ our dream was becoming reality. 

Ginger Rogers & Vicktor Frankenstein.

Ginger was a stray and never gave up being nervous around loud sounds and strangers, but she could hunt and defend herself that's for sure! A feather cat toy was no match for 5.5 lb. Ginger. (Her full name was Ginger Rogers Davis because she's light on her feet.) She had nails that were razor sharp but never once swatted or clawed at anyone or anything. Not a mean bone in her body, except when it came to bugs. I once caught her eating a wasp in our house. That's how hardcore she was. Cute but fierce. She gave Vicktor a run for his money a couple times even though he's twice her size. But for the most part they got along and tolerated each other especially when it was cold they would huddle together and snuggle.

Paint me like one of your French girls....in a toy box.

She was a funny cat, here's a couple tidbits... She was one of those cats that would stare at you from the end of the hallway. Just penetratingly stare and you could feel it. She'd sit on your lap for hours until you had to pee, then as soon as you came back she'd sit for a few more hours. She once crawled up the screen of our sliding glass door, so she was stuck between the screen and door. We didn't know where she was until she started meowing and we had to get her down. Once we were sitting eating dinner with a stick of butter in the butter dish. She jumped up one side of the table grabbed the butter in her mouth and jumped down the other side of the table like a ninja it happened so fast! We chased her through the house with butter in her mouth. But she was never big on food. She was big on love. You could just look at her at the other end of the hallway and her purrs would start. Ginger's motors running!

Ginger doing her staring thing.

She's been my baby through it all and made me smile everyday no matter how bad it was. She was there when I started Cats Like Us and even modeled on some promotional postcards. She's always been my rock. I guess she was an emotional support animal before that became a popular thing.

In her 18ish years with us she's had several health problems that taught me so much about cats. Ear mites, teeth infections, eye lesions, stress grooming, infected anal glands, feline herpes, dehydration, stomach upsets, ending with chronic kidney disease. The CKD started about 3 years ago, but now it's compounded with her not being able to eat and keep anything down. The vet hydrated her with fluids but none of the medications have worked. They said there was nothing they could do unless she goes to a gastroenterologist to find out what's making her throw up, but there's no blockages and they couldn't see anything abnormal in the x-rays. It's possible it could be cancer or her organs are shutting down. If they did find something, surgery is too risky at her age. She's used up her 9 lives. This past week has been hellish to say the least. Last night she vomited blood, she's having difficulty breathing, and you can tell she's trying to purr but can't. My heart is broken. We had to make the hard decision. It was going to be Monday but she started throwing up blood today, so we are taking her for her final vet visit tomorrow. A little part of me is dying inside, that part weighs 5.5 lbs.

The last picture I have with Ginger taken at 4am Thursday night.

I wrote Mourning Your Beloved Cat four years ago and now I find myself referencing it. I need reassurance that we did the right thing. She had all the best qualities you could ever want in a cat. To say we are devastated is an understatement. Vicktor seems clueless. I'm just trying to take it day by day. I plan to put together a more in depth blog later.

Thanks for reading. I just had to get this out there.