Work wasn’t quite dreadful but almost. Charles veered between amiability and depression. In a rather weird fit of confidingness, he gave me his secret trove of tapes to label – the stuff he keeps in his bedside drawer so that nobody else can see it. Porn and Dr. Who.

The rest of the time he spent harassing Shelly and bemoaning the poor organization of the Dbase files. I struggled with Dbase for the second half of the day. The report readers kept fritzing out and I kept having to rebuild them.

One of the first things I did was drive to Chuck’s place. There was nobody either canine or human in sight when I drove up, and when I knocked on the door all I could see through the glass at first were the two wolf-dogs baying. Finally Chuck’s relative, in her bathrobe, showed up, put a hammerlock on the white dog, and told me Chuck was in the back.

Chuck looked dreadful. He’s always wizened, but now he was in his bedroom in pajamas. I got the subscription labels, commiserated with Chuck about his bug, and left, but only after the relative wrestled Akita (who was letting out territorial growls) out of my path.

We may collate tomorrow, but if the issue gets here it won’t be until about 7 pm. I hope it arrives Thursday instead. Charlie leaves Thursday at 6 am and it might be easier if he’s not here.

The girls downstairs are playing music and a while back one of them was singing. Soundproofed walls my ass! I don’t mind, though. They’re burning an incense that’s making the whole place smell sweet. It took me a while to figure out what it was. It’s the same stuff the high priest at a coven I attended used to burn.