As I expressed this week, it was kind of whiplash, what with the shutdown-restart shuffle, dealing with loss, weather swinging from 70s to below freezing in 48 hours, and the late-week addition of elementary school/dance studio plague hitting a wide community of individuals, including, to some extent (minor, so far), me.

Like I said in the title, at least I got paid (including my year-end performance bonus, which is getting banked until at least the current CR gets extended or, more likely, doesn’t – I still feel a long shutdown in the cards). I also didn’t have to go to Ohio this week (which I wasn’t looking for), and managed to turn next month’s quarterly dog-and-pony show from an all-day thing in DC to a two hour phone call. That’s the best I can come up with on the glass-half-full front. I also have high hopes (so far) for a Friday phone call that might put an end to a lingering work issue that’s been keeping my folks from doing their jobs.

We’ll see. I’m also taking a few hours off on Friday, because dammit, I deserve it after the shit I put up with this week.

This weekend is pretty much just gonna pay the bills, throw some dinosaurs at the D&D crew, do some laundry, and not much else besides maybe taking my wife out for lunch. I’ll take it after the last couple of busy, enjoyable (but still kind of stressful) weekends.

Anyway, here’s a list of tunes my Pandora mix kicked out:

1. “Clumsy” – Waxahatchee
2. “Dirty Love (live at the Palladium) (NYC 10-30-77)” – Frank Zappa
3. “Heat of the Moment” – Asia
4. “Locomotive Breath” – Jethro Tull
5. “Big Sur” – The Thrills
6. “The Scratch” – 7 Year Bitch
7. “Spectral War” – Cavalera Conspiracy
8. “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)(French Extended Version) – Concrete Blonde
9. “Thriller” – Michael Jackson
10. “How Much I Feel” – Ambrosia
11. “Old Friends” – Pinegrove