Welcome to the neighborhood!

So we're sitting around, watching TV, playing on the internet and generally doing holiday evening suburban things when we noticed what sounded like a low-flying plane. Then we heard it again and again and again. We then thought it might be the paving trucks that were supposed to re-do our streets. Then we looked outside and saw a helicopter with a searchlight circling around.

Then I noticed a police car, without lights, cruising up our street.

Then we got nervous.

SM went around the house to check that the doors were locked and shut the blinds.

Okay, as I type this, I admit it sounds paranoid to lock all the doors, but that helicopter was circling low for a good 20 minutes, and it freaked us out a bit.

SM went online to see if he could find anything out. I decided to be more proactive and called the local district police station for information.

Turns out that there was a robbery a few miles away. Five men were chased in this direction, and four of them were caught literally three blocks (about a 1/3 of a mile) directly up the street. One jumped out of the car to escape. That's who they were looking for.

Turns out our paranoia might not have been so paranoid. I told SM to call our neighbors to let them know what was going on. Their response was along the lines of -- yeah, this has happened before. Welcome to the neighborhood. And BTW, too bad about the Sox and the Patriots.

Anyway, it quieted down for a while, so we figured the guy was caught. But just as I started typing this, the helicopter returned. I can hear it flying around outside right now, back and forth.

Oh well. Not much I can do but go back to our usual suburban evening activities -- TV, internet, playing computer games, etc.