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DAY after day in January, the rain poured down on the California coast without pause or pity -- some of the worst storms to hit the state in a decade. High winds took out power lines and overturned SUVs. Garbage washed up on beaches. Hundreds of people were evacuated from their mudslide-threatened homes. And on one particular Tuesday afternoon, in the Mission District of San Francisco, the heavens focused their fury on a visiting father from Brooklyn -- i.e., me -- who, so self-absorbed he was blind to the calamities around him, had decided to walk home from the supermarket with his 13-month-old daughter, Sasha, in her stroller. Only six and a half blocks, I thought. No need to use my weeklong bus and cable car pass ($26). But within a block, the downpour had rolled off my waterproof jacket and soaked my jeans through. On the next block, a homeless woman joined us, complaining that ''it's a terrible thing when you have to steal cupcakes to eat.'' True enough, but I was too stressed to commiserate. And on the third block, the inevitable happened. The paper grocery bag hanging over the back of Sasha's stroller disintegrated in the rain, spilling a week's worth of organic groceries -- a dense honeydew melon, supple young broccoli, tiny cremini mushrooms -- across the flooded sidewalk. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]