Okay, life’s kinda tenuous around here.
Over the past month, since I don’t have a televisor, I’ve
been going across the street to the lower (bar) level of
Joe’s American Bar and
Grill to watch the
NBA
Playoffs. Since the
Celtics are in the Finals for the
first time in 21 years, I caught their opening game win last Thursday,
and I was there again last night to catch Game Two.
Although it had been busy before, at halftime most of the crowd
disappeared. There were probably eight or ten people at the bar and
another dozen or more at tables, in addition to a lot of wait staff.
Even though it was after 10pm, I ordered a blackened chicken sandwich
for supper. It’s a nice sandwich, piled up with sautéed
onions. That’s “blackened”, not
“burned”…
By the middle of the fourth quarter, Boston had humiliated the Lakers
by building up a 24-point lead. Although the game was essentially over,
the Celtics were putting on a marvelous show befitting an incipient
champion.
It was about 11:30pm when the manager dude came bounding down the
stairs and bellowed, “Everybody get out! Get out of the
building!” then went out to spread the gospel to anyone still out
on the outdoor patio.
Well, he sounded pretty earnest, so people started stirring. I
debated bringing my cola with me, but decided against it, loping
quickly up the stairs and out into Dartmouth Street into the hot night;
it was still in the high 80s after one of the first scorchers of the
summer.
Once out, I overheard other evacuees’ exclamations of wonder.
Yup, turning around and looking up, it was hard to miss the fire. There
weren’t any flames, but it was still a pretty dramatic display.
Think of one of those fireworks you can buy that sprays a fountain of
sparks up into the air… only this one was huge and shooting
glowing embers thirty feet high, and it was accompanied by a huge
billowing cloud of black smoke. It looked to me like a massive chimney
fire.
I went across the street and up to my condo, which has a pretty good
view of the building, and broke out my camera. Unfortunately, I was
delayed on the way: I let the concierge on duty know about the fire,
then had to set up my tripod and replace the dead battery in my camera.
So by the time I started taking pictures, the
BFD had already arrived and
most of the sparks and smoke had abated.
Eventually a couple dozen fire engines showed up, and there were four
ladders extended up to the roof on just my side of the building. I
turned on the radio and caught the end of the game, learning that the
Lakers had started shooting desperation threes and somehow gotten within
two points before losing to the local team. I was happy about the
outcome, but disappointed that I missed watching the drama on the
televisor. But hey, at least I didn’t have to pay for my dinner
and drinks!
The BFD started leaving around 1:30am, and I turned in around 2am. I
understand the fire department let the management in around 3am. The
fire had started in the restaurant’s broiler exhaust vent, and
although the fire had been pretty well contained, the water damage will
require some extensive repairs. They hope to be open again Wednesday
night, although that means I’m going to have to find a new place
to watch Tuesday night’s Game Three at Los Angeles.
In my seven years living here, I’ve seen chimney fires in that
building at least two or three times, although none anywhere near as
spectacular as last night’s display. So Joe’s kind of has a
history. In one sense it wasn’t all that surprising, but I had
certainly never been in the basement of the building when one broke out!
It’s probably the closest I’ve ever come to a real fire.
Although I can’t shake the eerie feeling that there’s
been too many fires in my recent past. Just nine days ago, I was at work
in
Optaros’ 11th floor main
office when the
Cosi restaurant
downstairs had a pretty good fire around 10am; I wound up working from
home the rest of the day. And in March, there was a semi-real fire at
the strip mall I was working in down in St. Thomas: some kid had
accidentally activated a fire extinguisher, filling the area with carbon
dioxide smoke. And longtime readers will remember
this post I made 18
months ago about the huge transformer explosion at my previous
client’s site that killed one electrical worker and closed the
building for two months.
That’s really too many coincidences. As I say, it’s kind
of eerie. Fires should not be this common. But it does give one
something to write about!