A great deal has happened since we last met here, and yet here we are, pretty much the same as we've always been. October has been one of the most eventful months I've endured in recent years, and yet nothing much that fits into the parameters of this journal has occurred. Things have fallen apart and come back together in a different configuration.

Life is sometimes like that, like a shattered figurine patched back together with duct tape and zip ties and not looking quite the same. Yet there it sits on the shelf as always. You kind of hope no one notices that some pieces are missing, and others are slightly askew.

It rained in the North Bay this afternoon. This isn't news, as the northeastern part of the country and half of the Midwest have been under a barrage of wind and rain and destruction. As someone on Twitter said, New York is dressing up as New Orleans for Halloween. That's one of those jokes that's too true to be funny.

Here we are having a storm, not a superstorm. It's raining hard enough to knock out the satellite reception for minutes at a time. I know what it's like to be without any kind of power or running water for weeks at a time. That happened during and after a big storm here a few years ago. But that still wasn't a hurricane. That storm didn't even have a name, as far as I know.

The rain did not dampen the parade in San Francisco celebrating the Giants' World Series championship. That was a party, I'll tell you, but probably not one that could be appreciated as well by fans of the Tigers or Cardinals or Reds, all of whose teams were dispatched by the Giants on their way to victory. It couldn't mean as much to fans of other teams, or to the misguided lovers of basketball or football or, in some sad cases, no sport at all. If you don't understand, it's fine. Just don't be a Grinch about it, okay?

It was dry for the parade, but wet for the trick-or-treaters tonight. Since most of the extortion is conducted in shopping malls and other controlled environments these days, it probably didn't cause anyone to go without fun-sized Milky Ways and Snickers, or whatever people are handing out these days.

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For the first time since I've lived here, I didn't hunker down with the inside lights out on Halloween. It's not as if the non-existent children who don't live in my neighborhood anyway are going to wade through the muck in my driveway to a house with the outside lights off. If they tried it, they would have got vegan granola bars, because that's all I have that's pre-wrapped.