The Musical Annie

This post is about the musical Annie. It’s not about Annie, the delightful Broadway musical, but about our cat named Annie who has the most musical meow that I have ever heard.

We adopted Annie from a yard sale years ago. A cat had had kittens in my friend’s garage. Since my friend couldn’t keep them because she is very allergic to cats, I suggested she give them away at her yard sale. “But,” I said, “hide them when EJ comes to your sale or he will bring one (or more) of the kittens home.” Of course, my friend did not hide the kittens in time and, as expected, EJ brought home Annie.

We thought Annie was a boy at first so we named her Anakin. JJ was really into Star Wars at the time so we were naming our cats after Star War characters. JJ’s cat Luke is named after Luke Skywalker, of course. We had gotten Luke from the “free to good home” cage at the veterinarian. There were actually two black kittens in that cage–brothers–and we didn’t know which to choose so we adopted them both. We named the other kitten Han. Luke bonded strongly with JJ and Han bonded strongly with EJ. EJ loved his Han and would often sing Tom Jones’ song “Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, I Love You” to him as he cradled him. Sadly, Han died of a blood clot when he was just a couple of years old.

When we realized that Anakin was actually a girl, we renamed her Annie. The name Annie really suits her because she has the most beautifully musical meow ever. No one except EJ, JJ, and I has ever heard her beautiful meow because she never sang when others were around. However, this morning I went outside and videotaped her.  You are privileged to be the first person outside of my family who has ever heard Annie’s musical meow.