Flowers and florals

When your native clan lives on the other side of the great lakes, things can get a little lonely. Holidays are the worst. As all the college kids pile into caravans and hop onto buses, migrating back to their suburban homesteads, I'm usually stuck in my concrete tower, complaining loudly to no one about outdated traditions.

Not this Easter. I awoke to a phone call Saturday morning, and on the other line Genna invited--no, demanded--that I schedule a trip to Chez Winnipeg, at Bathurst and Bloor, where three lovely ladies would be cooking me a holiday dinner.

Then on Sunday morning I pulled on my best Passover pants (there would be two Jews at the table, after all) and rounded up a bag of buns and a bouquet of flowers, eager to join my fellow family-less friends.

I was met with a full-scale Easter dinner, complete with three courses and the remnants of a morning egg hunt. The conversation was as good as the food, and just as we were ending a heated philosophical debate on whether full-grown men can deliver the same excitement as Josh Harnett in the Virgin Suicides, I excused myself to take a call.

It was my mother on the other line, calling to wish me a happy Easter. I may have no family in this city, but standing in the kitchen that night, it felt like I did.

And, I do.