I really hate to brag…but if you must know, I am the undefeated, unbeatable, unbelievable cottage “caps” champion for 11 years straight…I’m running out of room for my trophies as a matter of fact.  (For those of you born pre 1980… “Caps” is a drinking game where you turn over the cap and balance it on the neck of the bottle, then sit opposite your opponent and flick the cap at their cap to knock it off and make them drink – the better you are the tipsier they get)…let’s just say Eagle Eye Lowry is always the thirsty one. I also hold the record for tying the most cherry stems in a knot, in a row – which would be 13. Did I hear someone say SKILLS? Ahem. I’ve also kissed Billy Idol, David Bowie and Steven Tyler, not all at the same time, individually…although that would be interesting. Oh and last but not least I won Brownie of the Year in 1969; it’s on my resume.

So what’s your claim to fame? I just love asking this question.  It provokes the greatest responses. People are often puzzled, pause and have to dig deep to really think about what defines their fame? What is fame? Am I famous?  Well of course you are!  What I especially love about this questions is the answer doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with your job, your status, or what you have created (be it a book or a baby). It even isn’t necessarily about something public, a performance, art piece, degree or other accomplishment, in fact it could be something very private – a secret you hold deep in the vault. What this question inspires for me is an open opportunity for possibility to create our own fame.

Fame – and I’m not talking about Kim Kardashian kinda fame; but more the illustrious sense of what do you want to be known for? Talked about? Remembered by? Loved for? What is it about you that resonates with people? Defines you, makes you, YOU and wonderfully famous for it?

So take a moment or ten and think about it. Foster your sparkles. Shine your own light and claim your own fame!

Here are my top 11 infamous claims:

1. Being a wild ass adventurer.
2. Talking to animals (they talk back).
3. Believing I will win an Oscar one day.
4. Owning a magical place called Kamperslut.
5. Scardiating people (The art, study, practice and perfection of hilarious, immature acts with the intention of scaring the bleep out of peeps.)
6. Breaking my back, collarbone, cheekbone, legs 3 times, shattering my right foot & ankle, left wrist, hand & fingers, heart 3 times and spirit once and can still being able to do a mean cartwheel.
7. Speaking my mind and telling the truth.
8. Spontaneous dance parties.
9. Proving the naysayers wrong.
10. Believing in the faeries that live in the chandelier.
11. Being me.

My Dad is my hero. His given name is Paul B. Lowry… he told me the “B” stood for “big” and I believed him… until snooping through his cufflink case I found his birth certificate and discovered it actually stood for Beverly. Wanna make your Dad squirm…call him Beverly, especially in front of people!  He had a face full of freckles topped with Bozo the clown fire engine red curls. We were two peas in a pod and proper name aside, I only ever called him Pinky and he only ever called me Patrick (his little Saint).

Pinky skipped to the beat of a very different drum.  He set the ultimate example of endurance, resilience and individualism with a spirit for joy that was contagious.  He stood for the very thing I strive to be everyday – someone who is authentic to their core and comfortable in their own shoes – no matter how different they are.

He made me believe that being unusual, uncommon, and eccentric was incredibly rare and special and something he encouraged and fostered in me for as long as I can remember.  He taught me there is no greater gift than your imagination and it in itself can manifest the most impossible and magnificent realities.  And so be it.  The faeries that lived in our chandelier were real, animals do speak, the wind has a heartbeat, colours had a taste, singing is an emotion, words can move mountains and magic absolutely exists.

Pinky was part man and part child.  He was our family’s provider and our playmate.  He was his own man – tired and true and you never had to guess how Pinky felt about anything – he called a spade a spade.  He was lit with a sparkle in his eyes, a devilish smirk and an insatiable desire to tease and to play tricks.

Pinky taught me to be me.  He taught me that you can’t keep a Lowry down and a Lowry never gives up.  He taught me to look closely, to see the beauty that surrounds us – because life can be tough – but there is always something magical to balance it out. He taught me to always believe.  I am my father’s daughter and darn proud to be it.

Here are Pinky’s top 11 Rules to Rebel by:

1. Be a cherub on the outside and a mad trickster on the inside.

2. Talk to all animals and bugs. Make eye contact. Wink. Let them sniff you and return the courtesy. Name each and every critter and creature you meet…it puts you on a first name basis.

3. Every single thing in nature has a spirit and soul. Respect it.

4. Learn to swim…it will come in handy when you are drowning. (He use to call me The Mermaid)

5. When all else fails – eat your favourite comfort food. (His were a cold tin of beans with chopped up wieners and cheesies on the side to dip in).

6. Always be prepared to “scardiate” someone…(Defn: intensely hilarious, immature, well thought out acts causing a total out of body frightful freak-out).

7. Screw caring about what anyone else thinks. Own your Silly Billy, be a super freak, wear your Clan of the Cave Bear outfit, bunny ears, sing at the top of your lungs in the mall, believe in Santa, The Easter Bunny and everything you can’t actually see.

8. Always take the dare. Hence the expression….”never dare a Lowry”. Covet adventure.

9. Be bravely free! Rant and rave about everything. If you don’t know something – make it up.

10. Your imagination is your greatest super power. See words as if they were pictures. Listen to the silence. Touch emotions. Taste the elements and smell colours.

11. You are never alone. The faeries are always with you.

So you’ve had a hard day. A particularly bumpy, fire-breathing, dragon slaying, had to save the world only to have the floor fall out from under you at the last minute leaving you plummeting face first into a cesspool of sewage curbside and not a knight in shiny armor anywhere within reach to help you get up… so you let loose some seriously unladylike obscenities that frighten the small child waiting with his mother at the bus stop (who could offer to help you get up…. but doesn’t…so you give her the “you ain’t no mudder of the year award” look and huff loudly)… so you get yourself up, and instantly feel drops of rain pelting your face, you open your umbrella and it blows inside out,  just as the fourth OUT OF SERVICE streetcar passes …so you spew some more unladylike obscenities and stare at the horrible raincoat protected dry child. The slothcar finally comes so you stagger on and said small hellion child sits in front of you and engages in a freak show tantrum that makes your ears bleed and eyes roll inside out, so you clench your teeth because it is taking every ounce of restraint not to make a scary child- eating monster face at peewee… you bite your tongue, roll your eyes and mutter Tourette-like groans under your breath until you escape the streetcar named demonic with one last evil eye glare at Madonna and child….who of course follow you off the streetcar….so you quicken your pace, looking back every few steps to make sure the swat team isn’t following you until you walk smack dab into a massive recycling bin filled with empty containers that once held pickles because you can smell that horrible pickle smell and worse there’s some of that disgusting putrefying pickle juice on your hand; so you run, horrified, arms flaying, slightly hysterical, just keeping it together for one more block until you can reach safety and let the insanity loose in the privacy of your own home…only the front door is jammed again so you call it a Dickhead and plea bargain with it to just fricking open or else its destined for firewood…the third kick gets you in where the cats are performing an opus inspired by starvation as I remove my boots only to step in still warm hairball barf, as utter repulsion overcomes me I feel it seeping between my toes, hopping on the other foot to my kitchen where I collapse on the floor in fetal position, letting the cool tiles lull me back to a sense of emotional stability. Minutes…perhaps hours pass and I slowly open my eyes, returning to a sense of calm, after surviving a war.  A flicker of light catches my eye from under the fridge, I blink, and wiggle a few inches closer, now eye-to-eye with the under the fridge world, a flotsam and jetsam of crumbs, dust bunnies, forsaken cat cookies and my lost emerald ring.

Like I said, it’s all good.

Stupid. Dummy. Retard.  Just a few of the names I remember being called as a child undiagnosed with Dyslexia.  Way back in the olden days, when I was a tot, teachers and parents were not as aware of learning challenges as they are today.  Let’s just say I spent a lot of time in the “special” class.

Luckily for me I had a very unique and magical Dad who saw my peculiarities as perks. Perks that included being told that I was born on a star and that I had secret super powers. Perks that trained me to infuse my imagination with uber effervescent sparkle. Perks that lead me to hone in and celebrate my own unique way of expressing my observations, ideas and feelings.  Perks that ironically helped me to become a very clever and creative writer.

Here are interesting facts…in no particular disorder…

1. Dyslexics are not stupid. In fact, they are gifted with a unique mindset that is more intelligent, more creative and more innovative than others. Duh.

2. Dyslexia is not the result of neurological damage, but the product of neurological development. It’s a difficulty in processing linguistic and symbolic codes, letters, numbers and speech sounds. Translation – things get mixed up.

3. Dyslexics think in pictures instead of words. Non-dyslexics have verbal thoughts, (thinking in words) which is a linear process that occurs at a speed of about 150 words per minute. Dyslexics have non-verbal thoughts, (thinking in pictures) – the picture grows as the thought process adds more concepts. It’s much faster, possibly thousands of times faster (a picture is worth a thousand words). Because of its speed, it happens in the subconscious mind. When there is no mental picture for a particular word, it causes disorientation

4. Dyslexics have amazing thinking skills in the area of conceptualization, reason, imagination and abstraction. Yay unicorn thinking!

5. Dyslexics have a strong ability to see concepts with a “big picture” perspective. I call it my “stand on tippy-toes” view.

6. Dyslexics have excellent comprehension of the stories read or told them as well as a better sense of spatial relationships and better use of their right brain. Just don’t ask me to remember my phone #.

7. Some of the most brilliant minds of our time have been known to have dyslexia: Albert Einstein, Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill, Benjamin Franklin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, John Lennon and Patty Lowry, to name just a few.

8. Worse game to ask a Dyslexic to play is Scrabble.

9. My worse Dyslexic spelling mistake – using Ingenuous instead of ingenious in a full-page newspaper ad when describing world-renowned designer and architect Philippe Stark.

10. A Dyslexic’s BFF – a synonym dictionary to find a word used in place of the one you can’t spell.

11. Favourite Dyslexic saying: “If life gives you melons then you’re probably dyslexic!” Or “Good punctuation means not to be late.”

It’s likely you’re asked this question a dozen times a day. It’s also likely you respond “fine”.  Maybe some days you choose to dig a bit deeper and share a few more expletives like “fricking awesome sauce” or “sick as a tick on the back of a flea”… but in general our answers are often robotic pacifiers that have nothing to do with how we actually feel.

It can be tough to feel; to allow ourselves to “feel real”, feel authentic, full-on emotions. And it can be even tougher to express them. Whether it’s something happy, sad, mad or glad, emotions can be really scary, overwhelming, awkward and even hysterical (like in the sighting of a baby kitten or Robert Downey Jr, for instance).

I on the other hand have always been someone who really feels things big…“turn it up to 11” big. I don’t just get excited, I get elated, and on the flip side, sadness is a plummeting pit of mud-infused despair.  It’s sometimes a bit of a rolly-coaster ride but my feelings are a big part of me and my creative self-expression.

Once upon a time during a particularly bumpy round in the ring of life, I got knocked out; broken into a bazillion bits and was down for the count. Completely shut down, shut out and shut off. Nothing could get me to open the vault.  As it turns out, sometimes it’s a good thing to be broken.  It gave me a break – from feeling – and a chance to decide how I wanted to rebuild. It also inspired me to write my book.

The long and “oh so dramatic, made-for-TV movie” of the re-opening of my emotional vault was in fact a mini-series in the making!  Blood, sweat and tears, plus a mish mash of starring roles in “Mud Gurl”, “Down & Out Damsel in Distress” and “There’s no such thing as Perfect” to name just a few.

The adventure back was very enlightening. I leaned a lot about walls, forts, drawbridges and dragons.  I learned to play with swords and shields. I explored the colours and tastes of emotions; and I found peace and inspiration in letting the rainbow of feelings in. It was a mind-bending experience and not to minimize all the work, because it was Rocky Balboa hard…but my two greatest insights that continue to help me “feel real” on a daily basis are these:  choice and the dial. Once you realize you can choose how you want to feel and then give yourself permission to take control of the dial (dial up or down), this very awareness let’s you manage a kaleidoscopic realm of emotions at your disposal.

So I ask you…how do you feel?  And may I recommend not to just think about it, but to let yourself feel it.

I feel excited, like a herd of giddy llamas stampeding down the Machu Pichu trail, because I’m following my dream. I also feel anxious, like the sound of an approaching swarm of bees buzzing, because I’m about to share some pretty personal stuff with you in my book.  But more than anything I just feel so darn grateful (bigger than the strength of 10 Grinchs + 2) to be feeling real and be just “fine” with that.

Life is amazing. What started with one emotional challenge snowballed into a Crackerjack box of over 80 “how to” lists for all the different situations that life throws at you. So whether you’re dealing with a bad hair day, looking to amp up your empathy, tune into your vulnerability, celebrate your sexiosity or manage your anger, fury and wrath – it’s all here waiting for you inside the emotion-infused pages of How to Live Like a Chipmunk and Other Tips on Living An Awesome Sauce Life!  Coming soon!!!!!

I love chipmunks. Really what’s not to love?  To start, they’re part of the squirrel family – so duh I love them. They are ridiculously cute, tiny, furry, have pudgy cheeks, large glossy eyes, striped bums and bushy tails. And as if that’s not enough, they let you love them, pet them, hug them and squeeze them.  Here are my top 11 fascinating facts on why a Chipmunk deserves a place on the cover of my book.

1. Chipmunks are the smallest members of the squirrel family. The smallest species weighs in at 1 ounce and reaches 7inches in length, while the largest can reach 4.4 ounces and 11 inches in length.
2. A Chipmunk’s tail can reach 3 to 5 inches in length. I also find it the easiest way to identify individual chippers. For instant, Zordock’s tail is flat and wiry, Terry’s is long and slim, Stub’s is, well a stub and Veronica’s is like a Geisha’s fan.
3. Fastidious, friendly and forward-thinking – one little chipmunk can gather up to 165 acorns in a day.
4. Chipmunks enjoy fruits, nuts, seeds, mushrooms and worms. I’ve also found them to also love, coffee, potato chips and red wine.
5. Chipmunks live in underground burrows. The entrance tunnel is up to 30 feet in length, leading to several chambers, including a nesting chamber, two food storage chambers, wine cellar and party room.
6. Chipmunk’s front feet have four toes; the back ones have five…which make them particularly good dancers and prancers.
7. Unlike squirrels that have no idea where they hid their nuts, chipmunks will stockpile up to 8 lbs of food to keep their family going throughout the winter.
8. Chipmunk cheeks are made of stretchy skin and can expand to three times the size of its head in order to be able to stuff them with food. Standing peanut stuffing record held by Zordock Lowry – 4 double peanuts in his mouth – 1 held in his paw while scurrying away.
9. A group of chipmunks is referred to as a “scurry”. Male munks are called Bucks, female are called Does and babies are known as Pups, Kits or Kittens.
10. Chipmunks are loners except when they’re lovers. The male will embarrass himself to attract a female by high pitch chirps, croaks and bum wiggling. (sounds familiar)
11. The chipmunk totem means that magic is afoot!  They bring gifts of creativity, honed intuition and trust. They embody the spirit of fearless exploration and play.

There’s the power of positive thinking, the power of words, the power of three and the Power of love. But there is no greater power in this universe galaxy than that of the Power of Bunny; also known as Bunny Power.

Now be warned – this is not child’s play. This isn’t your average hop, skip and jump through fields of daisies on a sunny afternoon that barfs rainbows. We’re not talking Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail or Peter. No run-of-the-mill Thumper, Bugs, Harvey or Trix. Not even close to Alice’s White Rabbit, Monty’s Killer Bunny or Aesop’s Hare.  Even Roger, Fiver, Mr. Energizer and Heff’s bunnies don’t make the grade. We’re talking hardcore Bunny here. A Bunny, who laughs at lucky key chains, defiantly wiggles his whiskers at fur collars, and a Bunny whose middle name is Stu.

Bigger than Santa and better than Stupid Cupid. Hanging out long before JC did, our little furry friend is not only a symbol of fertility, but thanks to his prolific, inexhaustible regenerating prose, has also become the impetus behind the bump and grind rebirth of our earth at the Spring Equinox.  Never resting on the laurels of such paltry deeds, Pagan legend has it, that the goddess Eostre found a wounded bird in the snow, and to help the little bird survive the winter, she transformed it into a rabbit… magically the transformation was incomplete and the rabbit retained the ability to lay eggs. In thanks for its life being saved, the rabbit took the eggs and left them as gifts for Eostre.  And so TEB got his celebrity name.

I think the Easter Bunny rocks. He’s a Lagomorph among Rodentia. The trickster archetype, one of the twelve celestial animals in the Chinese Zodiac, and in Native American Ojibwa mythology – the Great Rabbit, is an important deity related to the creation of the world…hmm interesting. To me, he’s a snappy dresser with a generous nature for giving. A notorious lover with big feet, and of course those big ears. Which when you think of it form a peace sign, and that’s pretty powerful. But his power goes far beyond the miraculous task of turning eggs into chocolate. A divine symbol of good and giving, the power of Bunny is a gift he gives us all, just for believing in him. He is ever everlasting and omnipresent and once invited into your life, you too will experience a new beginning. Unlike other famous big wigs…The Bunny doesn’t ask anything of you – no rules or regulations to abide by, no bunny book to follow, no bunny place of worship. His dogma – hop if you’re happy, your prayers – to the Goddesses of chocolate, and The Bunny loves everyone – toad, orangutan, weasel and worm the same.  He is supreme and embodies quintessential magic. So I ask, do you believe in The Easter Bunny? I believe. And just like every spring, I am born again.

Well what can I say – I have a thing for bushy tails.

It all began quite innocently; in fact I was just a wee babe of 4 months old when my Mom set me out in the backyard in my stroller to catch some freckles in the summer sun.  Mom would tell me this story a thousand times.  “I left you for just 5 minutes to top up my G&T, to return and find three squirrels nuzzled up beside you in your carriage. I screamed fearing for your safety…but those three little squirrels just yawned in their sleepy bliss and tucked themselves further under your Yogi Bear blanket.”  Mom knew from that moment I would be a special creature.

Apparently it didn’t stop there.  When I was 5 years old, Mom was walking me to school and suddenly a feisty little red squirrel ran out from the bush and bolted up my tiny knee-socked leg, over my happy-face hot pants and stole a saucy kiss on my cheek.  Honest.  Like my Mom would lie?   And so began the legend of the squirrel whisperer child.

I didn’t share my secret relationship with squirrels, until much later in life; people already considered me an odd little waif. As a child I found great solace and camaraderie in my squirrel friends, they were so much chattier than my imaginary friends.  As a teen, it became harder and harder to hide, I mean I couldn’t sit on a park bench without a flurry of furry tails vying for my attention. There was Pablo who had a thing for my red patent shoes, Norman who like to rummage through my pockets and Russel who had the most melodic shrill of any squirrel I’ve ever sung with.  It was quite the scene and the bushes were a bustle with covert squirrel rendezvous – I honestly didn’t have time for a real boyfriend.

Years passed; pounds of peanuts and many ankle scratches later I found great fortune in acquiring my own little piece of magic land in the northern woods of Ontario. It was there that my fetish for fur ball kinship would develop into an other worldly realm. It was there where I encountered Crackhead Betty. Betty was a pigeon- toed, puffy-lipped red squirrel from the back woods ghetto. Known to the forest folk as a chest pounding, bushy tailed menace who would lie, cheat and steal your man for a cheap nut.  But I took to Betty and her wild woodsy ways. I had heard from my other forest friends (yea they speak to me as well) that she was left by her loser Mom at birth and spent most of her life alone without any love; so I made it my mission to tame that dame. It took time, trust and a few fisticuffs with a kamikaze fireball but one day we were just sitting on the step, chortling for hours, cracking peanuts by the pound, and low and behold she crawled up on my lap and took a squirrel snooze… the rest is history.  Betty became famous in those northern woods and a part of the Lowry family.  She even took residence inside the cottage one winter and often slept at the bottom of my bed only to wake me up with a brush of her scarlet tail in the morning before breaknutfast.

I could go on and on about stories that would curl your hair, but that’s enough revealing for now…us squirrel whisperers need to keep some things secret. I’ll just leave you with a little moral to this furry tale:  Always look far beyond the shell, for the hardest nuts to crack is where the sweetest love may dwell.

Hello my name is Patty and I am a list lover. I’m also a speed bunny who can run circles around Mr. Energizer. I’ll make this snappy because time is of the essence and I have ten million things to do…on my “TO DO LIST”!

The concept of patience is a mystery to me. I believe in the power of now…or better yet…yesterday…and quite often question what took you so long? My desires are imminent, immediate and my personality is such that I just want to know how to do, what I want to do, to get where I want to be NOW. Just give me the dirt, the 101, the short and sweet to the point ammo so I can get busy and make shit happen! I don’t have the luxury to leisurely contemplate the 50 possibilities of what I want to accomplish today. Time is a ticking and I want things done lickety-split. I’m a busy girl with a big bucket list, who takes multi-tasking, multi-manifesting and multi-managing to a whole other level. We’re talking triplicate of tiers to the power of 3, echelons of hierarchy, decoratively arranged in a fanfare of rainbow colour-coded post it notes.

I’m not completely sure why I feel this need to masterfully manipulate and maximize my time so to fit as much as possible in – other than I’ve witnessed how suddenly short life can be and I don’t want to waste a second

So a while back, during a time of “therapeutic healing” (aka total major meltdown), I found myself on a quest for answers. I desperately wanted to know how to get from point A to point B in the quickest, most painless and productive way. My coach suggested volumes of really excellent books averaging on 200 pages each, which would provide me with possible insights and inspiration. They made nice doorstops. I’d pile them high; neatly coloured coordinated of course and kick them from time to time. Who I ask has the time to read that much blabbity blab blab bla? No offense great minds and gurus but I needed help now. And it’s not because I am lazy, or I didn’t think they had value, it was simply my impatience and intolerance of the time I felt I would be wasting. I know… I know… it’s about the journey. So I shared my disdain for this laborious Herculean endeavor with my coach, begging her to provide me with something simpler, more immediate, more like Coles Notes and she replied quite simply – then you write it.   And so my journey began. A challenge to take one topic and simplify it into a meaningful and manageable list. That task has since snowballed into over 80 arenas of emotions; happy stuff and stressy stuff which now make up my book!

So to illustrate my point…I present you with the top 11 favourite expressions of an impetuous energizer bunny:

1. KISS (Keep it simple stupid)
2. Make a long story short.
3. Just the facts Ma’am.
4. Less is more.
5. There’s no time to lose!
6. What are you waiting for?
7. So what’s your point?
8. Hurry scurry little furry.
9. Jump to it.
10. Chop Chop Buttercup.
11. Give it to me in a nutshell.

Ever since I was little I wanted to be famous. Not the Kim Kardashian kind of famous or even Steve Jobs kind of famous. OK who am I kidding? I wanted full on Meryl Streep Oscar nominated fame.   For years, as a chronic insomniac I’d lie at night and daydream about being on Dave Letterman talking about everything and anything (I was his favourite guest). Talking to Dave helped me fall asleep, as well as gave me a sense that someone cared about what I thought. Yea I know I was daydreaming. And yes I also know it’s a little pathetic but it comes from a place of wanting to feel important, wanting to matter. I wanted to be acknowledged for doing something awesome. As time went by and producers weren’t knocking down my door, I decided that if fame wasn’t going to find me I would choose to create my own in the smallest of gestures every day.

So I am famous in my own mind. I walk the red carpet every day, given my winning Oscar speech numerous times and I’ve won Survivor Muskoka with the most blindsides ever in Survivor history. Oh and did I tell you about my island. You know my island, where once I’m famous I bring every single person I love who has helped me along the way to live in absolute nirvana. We’ll all get to be and do whatever we want! There will be a surf shop, beach bar, petting zoo, crafts room, organic farm, disco and a barn filled with handsome lumberjacks or ladyjacks or whatever it is you fancy! I talk about my island every day and my peeps can’t wait to come. Somehow I believe they believe it will happen…and it probably will. I go on rants and raves about topics that can change the world or simply shift the mood of a single moment and just because it isn’t captured on Entertainment Tonight doesn’t make it any less valuable or real. I declare random holidays like Love your Co-Workers Day and Red Wine Friday (well it’s every Friday). I’m famous for my dramatic interpretive dancing, my passion for potato chips, wild weekends at my cottage, scaring the bleep out of people, sipping whisky, squirrel whispering, animal costumes and my junk food smorgasbords…to name just a few.

Being famous isn’t about getting a star on Hollywood Blvd – it’s about reaching on your tippy-toes for your own star and owning it. It’s also not about needing someone else to award it to you – you just need to claim it. So shine a spotlight on what makes you unique, quirky, talented or especially goofy, geeky or great and claim your fame.

Patty Lowry – Brownie of the Year, 1969.