at least we got it out of the way early.

Nothing like a good dose of blood-curdling fear to begin a new era.

Michelle, Jeremiah and Brad moved in yesterday. I think they had something ridiculous like an 18-hour day. Luckily, they had the all-day use of a giant moving truck. They left to pick up their final truck load at about 7:30 PM. 

Meanwhile, Man with the Plan and I ran out to Home Depot to buy some supplies for an interim shower curtain while we wait to save up for an actual shower door. We swung by Dominick's to grab some celebratory beers. We set up the shower curtain and paced the length of the kitchen and tried to come up with flooring solutions. (We decided on slate and are all gung-ho on it, except a few of the tiles we laid down for the purposes of cabinet installation of broke overnight. We have too much work to do before we can seal/grout slate, and it's not feasible to cut off the front of Renard from the bathroom and bedrooms while we wait for it to dry. We'll think of something.)

I walked through the living room for reasons I don't remember and stopped dead in my tracks at the end of the privacy wall by the reception desk. My senses became overpowered by this sickly sweet smell, like burnt sugar. I took a quick mental assessment - no food in the house. No spills. No open drinks. No garbage sitting out. The bakery had been closed for hours. I took another whiff, and this time I smelled that weird ozone/electrical smell that people will tell you doesn't actually exist. I checked all the outlets. No sparks, no charred outlets. Nothing. So for a brief moment I decided that either Renard is haunted, or I was moments away from my first stroke at 25 years of age.

Anyway, it was dark outside and the wind was kicking up. It had been a lovely 80 degrees out all day - perfect for moving - but there was supposedly a thunderstorm on the way. Man with the Plan and I stood in the gallery, drinking beers, when we heard a sound like a loud groan - as though the building was in pain - and all the lights went out. The emergency floodlights flashed on instantly. "Aaand the power's out," commented Man. "That's great."

"Oh no. How could that have happened? What do we have running right now? The overhead lights, the bathroom light... and whatever Brad's got going in the basement. Oh, the dehumidifier."

"Yeah, but that's not enough to knock out the power. Let me go outside and check."

We keep careful notes on our meters. I checked the sheet where we note the dials on the electricity meter twice daily. In 30 hours, we'd used about $3 worth of electricity, basically ruling out the possibility that we blew a circuit from overuse.

Man came back a minute later and reported that the entire block was out, including a gallery party and the salon where some hapless woman was getting her hair styled in total darkness. We made the requisite calls to ComEd and the landlord, determined that there were no elderly folks in the building who would need help, and then sat down in silence to sip our beers.

And then we heard what sounded like two gun shots a couple of houses down. Pop pop.

"What the hell was that?!"

"I don't know, but stay away from the windows."

My heart started racing. A minute later, a third pop in the same place. We called the police and I ran to the back of the house to try to find some candles. We weren't sure how long the emergency flood lights would last. Man almost tackled one of Michelle and Jeremiah's mannequins because it was leaned semi-ominously around the corner in the work room and was gleaming in the moonlight from the window. 

Outside, the wind was even stronger. I couldn't find any candles in my room, groping boxes and digging through them in pitch darkness. I got back up to the gallery, and we heard a fourth pop.

Man looked at the front door and then turned back. "There was a shooting a few blocks north of here tonight. I don't know if..."

"It can't be gun shots. Why four, all spaced out, sounding totally uniform?"

"It has to be a transformer."

"Yeah. I thought I smelled that electricity smell like ten minutes before the lights went out. But why would I smell it before anything happened?"

"I don't know, but don't touch any metal, okay? No door knobs, no windows, no door frames, just stay put. I've never heard four transformers pop at once. I'm going outside."

Man disappeared. I looked through the open door and watched Man walk down the street. Police cars were starting to zoom in and out of side streets and drunk partygoers were ambling down the street, oblivious to what we thought was certain danger. I sat in the silence of a blacked-out Renard and wondered where everyone else was and why their last trip was taking so long. 

I went outside too. 

Everything seemed okay aside from the minor quake of fear when a small black car slowly turned out of the alley and rolled up a few parking spaces over with their headlights turned out. I froze in place and could only breathe when a woman kicked the door open and went into the back seat to retrieve her baby. Phew.

Back in Renard, there wasn't much to do except wait for the others. I went for a second check for candles and then heard an ambulance. I peeked out my bedroom window just in time to see a truck pull up behind Renard. The others had returned! Man and I went out the back bedroom and told them a whole bunch of crazy stuff was happening, but they didn't seem too concerned.

As the house wimp, I found it necessary to mutter, "Yeah, but we should still make it quick, guys. There's a storm coming and moving stuff into a warehouse by flashlight is going to look really shady if any cops drive by."

"Yeah, good point," Jeremiah said. 

We set about moving everything as quickly as we could. This was not an easy task, as the last truckload was a bunch of old furniture - a drafting table, a light table, tables, counters, and huge metal filing cabinets.

I had the dog under one arm and the flashlight in my other hand. The dog hates wind and was starting to wriggle out of my grasp and whine at the gusts of wind hitting us from all directions. One of those winds brought the powerful ozone smell from the living room. It was then that what we were doing fully set in. We were standing in a large metal truck, unloading large metal fixtures in an alley possibly littered with downed wires and busted transformers, all with a thunderstorm on the way. In the dark.

At this moment, I started to survey the area with the flashlight, and fixed my gaze on the transformers. One of them was completely blackened. 

"You guys, look," I said. "That transformer blew up."

"ComEd's on the way," said Man. "They'll fix it."

"Yeah. At least we know nobody was out here shooting at-" I stopped when I saw a large, black SUV at the mouth of the alley. "Somebody's trying to get in, whoops."

As soon as I said this, the car pulled out of the alley in reverse and gunned it backwards all the way into a parking lot across the street. It sat there for several moments, idling with the headlights on, seemingly pointed directly at us.

Because I was the only one in the bunch nervously awaiting our fate of being electrocuted, then shot by thugs and arrested by police, I paid very careful attention to the black SUV. "You guys, he's not going anywhere, he's just sitting there."

The boys stopped what they were doing and all turned to look at the SUV. The driver immediately switched on the brights, left them on for about ten seconds, and then flicked them off. 

"What the hell is this clown doing?"

The others went about moving furniture into the studio by the side basement door. After a minute or two, the SUV was gone. 

I breathed a sigh of relief, and then was momentarily stricken by fear when a car pulled into the opposite end of the alley. I screamed, "HE'S COMING!"

It was a Lincoln towncar and everyone laughed at me. Jerks.

Jeremiah told me to relax. I had a giggle too, and then cautiously looked southward - and saw that the black SUV was parked right back in the same spot in the parking lot, headlights fixed on what we were doing. This is right about the time that my legs started to feel a little weak.

I know the others weren't afraid, so maybe they were just humoring me when Brad emerged from the basement with two hammers and announced that nothing bad was going to happen to us. This didn't lessen my fear.

While Brad was back situating something in the basement, the black SUV started up and looked like it was heading to the street. I took my eyes away from the scene for a brief moment to look at Man, who was inside the moving truck. I turned with the flashlight toward the end of the alley just in time to see a dark car driving full-speed toward the moving truck with no signs of stopping.

At this point, adrenaline took over and all I could do was scream "HE'S COMING, HE'S COMING.... STOP!" Everything was happening in slow motion as I became certain that this car was going to slam into the back of the truck and hurt Man and Jeremiah. My arm involuntarily wound up because for some reason in my panic, it became my plan to spike the flashlight through the car's windshield if the driver didn't stop. 

The driver slammed on the brakes and I heard Man shout "It's a cop!"

My knees turned to jelly and I quickly aborted the flashlight plan.

And then Jeremiah's dad cheerfully emerged from the car. He'd come to help unload.

I thought my heart was going to explode, so I just went inside to sit in the gallery and unwind a little. I'll spare everyone the details of how the pitch-black basement navigation went.

ComEd came and fixed the power less than five minutes after the move was completed. Of course.

I found the candles at last, put them in a very visible area on the gallery table, and then had a second beer. My hands stopped shaking, Michelle came over, and everything went back to normal.

Sounds like we're off on the right foot.