Allegations of sexual misconduct loomed large for a third straight week – this time taking down NBC Today show co-host Matt Lauer and the longtime star of The Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor. But the week’s drama was only getting started.

Somewhere between the parade, football games and holiday feasting, Thanksgiving provides an opportunity for reflection; and in Connecticut, Gov. Dannel Malloy delivered a sobering overview of a tumultuous year that has brought more than its share of human suffering, loss of life and fiscal challenges.

It was a week of particularly rancorous politics in a month of rancorous politics in a year of rancorous politics. It began with uproar over the past behavior of Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Roy Moore of Alabama, accused of predatory sexual conduct toward women half his age; then swept up Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota.

It was a municipal election week in Connecticut, punctuated by word of yet another mass shooting and a heated debate over tax legislation.

The week started badly for President Donald Trump – even worse for his former campaign manager Paul Manafort – then got complicated and more difficult for everyone. In Connecticut, the new and overdue budget began taking effect.

And, lo, on the 118th day, the assemblage brought forth (on a veto-proof vote) a state budget, and a great sigh of relief spread across the land, and it was good. (For some people anyway.)

It was seven days of controversy and vitriol for the President of the United States — a normal week, in other words. It was business as usual in Connecticut, too — in search of a budget agreement. There, it seemed, there was some progress.

The mass murder of 58 people and wounding of more than 500 others in Las Vegas last week was felt deeply in Connecticut, where people’s lives were irrevocably stained by the deaths of 26 school children and their teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School five years ago.

The week began with a lot of suspense over whether the latest Republican attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act would succeed or fail… the extent of the damage inflicted on Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria… and how the NFL would react to President Donald Trump’s assertion that teams should fire any player who refuses to stand during the national anthem.

Calls for compromise and bipartisanship began to emerge in last week’s political discussion over Connecticut’s continuing failure to adopt a budget, but there was little to show for it.

It was a week of suspense and anxiety, followed by a flurry of more suspense and more anxiety, followed by a night of high political drama — and promise of a veto — yet Connecticut is still waiting to see what a feverish effort to pass a state budget will produce.

Two different but potentially catastrophic storms pre-occupied Connecticut’s thoughts last week – one a hurricane and the other a damaging fiscal deadline.

All eyes were on Houston this week, and Connecticut hearts went out to the thousands of Texans displaced by Hurricane Harvey. While attention was focused on the disaster there, however, the state’s own problems remained undiminished.

Ah, the lazy days of summer, when the only things to worry about are the state’s crushing debt and a president on the warpath.