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!