I moved to Seattle in 1999, just a few months before the WTO meetings.

Since then, the sound of choppers overhead has always made me think of the night when the cops rampaged up into my neighborhood, firing off pepper spray in Exxon Valdez quantities.

Last night, when I got home from Seth's house at around 11:00 and heard choppers east of me, over Broadway, I knew they were good choppers, looking down on something special.

From now on, when I hear a helicopter, I will think of being packed in with varina8 and desolina and (hundreds? thousands?) of other lovely people at the intersection of Pike and Broadway, dancing to Don't Stop Believin' while total strangers pressed cheap beer into my hands and the police looked on peacefully.