I’d like to take a moment to reflect on mirrors.

I’m talking specifically about those 3-way ones. Who thought it was a good idea to install them in every dressing room in Bloomingdale’s? I guarantee you it was not a woman over fifty.

Let’s be honest. The only people who LIKE looking at themselves in a 3-way are those who have flawless bodies and those who have learned to embrace their flaws. These two groups together equal maybe .01% of the population. That leaves the other 99.99% of us reluctant to shop at Bloomingdales.

On a recent trip to the store, I tried on a dress that, in Mirror 1 (head-on) looked fabulous. I was imagining wearing it to great effect on some red carpet when I made the mistake of adjusting Mirrors 2 and 3 for a look at the rear. I rarely get such an accurate view, so I was startled to notice that some shape-shifting had taken place behind my back. (Not in a good way.)

“It’s not your ass, it’s the dress,” I told myself. I unzipped and stepped out of the frock, handling it with some hostility. I was careful to avoid further self-examination before slipping into my jeans. Once dressed, I couldn’t help looking again.

“It’s not your ass, it’s the jeans,” I said, and got the hell out of Bloomingdales.

If I were in charge of customer relations at that store, I’d remove two mirrors and install shadowy lighting in all dressing rooms. I’m pretty sure their sales would triple. If that approach was cost-prohibitive, I’d at least have the decency to post signage saying, “It’s not your ass, it’s our clothing.”

Meanwhile, I’m going shopping where I can completely avoid the trauma of a 360º self-inspecition: online.

(Illustration by Lindsay duPont)

It doesn’t happen often but it did the other day, while I was engaged in a bunch of crucial activities. Just as I was applying a “miracle” spray to my ballet flats in hopes of stretching them, half-listening to a Rosetta Stone Spanish lesson, washing dog toys on the “sanitary” cycle and roasting walnuts in the oven, the doorbell rang.

In my usual reaction to sudden interruption I said, “What the f___?” I slipped into the damp, chemical-smelly flats and went to the door.

I opened the door warily because sometimes that action has resulted in unwelcome surprises. I once found myself facing a man with arms tattooed from shoulder to wrist, like indigo sleeves, and a body odor like that stuff I use to kill spiders. He explained that the pimped-up truck he’d parked in my driveway was full of his “company’s surplus” steaks, which he was willing to sell to me at a discount, In a fit of bad judgement, I paid the guy $80 in exchange for a dozen pieces of frozen meat.

I still can’t explain why my I made a purchase that was so stupid on many levels. There were so many red flags it was like a Chinese parade, and yet, there I was with an armload of T-bones.

Later, seized with remorse, I threw out all the steaks but one, which I left in the freezer as a reminder-to-self not to buy food for your family from every hopped up blue man who Nascars into your driveway.

Anyway, this time it was Jane.

“I was right up on Mulholland for lunch—do you know Lily Bolotin? I thought I’d…but…is it a bad time…?

I really like Jane—we bonded when we both dropped out of a yoga pregnancy class in the last century—but I’m not gifted at spontaneity. Jane may have noticed that my eyebrows were not in the “So glad you’re here!” position.

Also, I’m afflicted with the need to be an impressive hostess. When somebody shows up, you’d like to offer home made shortbread or angel food cake and a lovely tea, all Downton Abbey-ish. But, caught off guard, you’re likely to have nothing but Triscuits and Gatorade, which makes you feel like a loser, rather than like Maggie Smith.

Of course, if you were a rational person, you’d understand that Jane would be perfectly happy with Triscuits, but you’re not (or you’d never have given money to Mr. Psycho-Steak.)

“Perdon, donde esta el bano de mujeres?” rosetta chirped from my iPhone .

“Bienvenidos a mi casa!” I said, switching off the phone and hugging Jane while mentally searching my cupboards for hostessy snack options.

Then I remembered about he previous week’s Unnecessary Cooking. U.C. is what you do when you have a couple days free of regular cooking, i.e. dinners or lunches, so you have the energy to prepare something to store for future use. I had made and frozen some cheese biscuit dough for exactly the kind of occasion that was occurring.

I pulled a little log of it from the freezer, noticing that it was snuggled up against the remaining ill-gotten steak. Within 20 minutes we had warm biscuits (and a little sherry) and I felt almost like Maggie Smith. (Although she would not be caught dead in the act of shoe-stretching.)

Jane left, and in a warm glow of sherry and friendship I took that steak out of the freezer. Later, in U.C. mode, I cooked and fed it to Oliver, careful to taste it myself first as a poison check. It wasn’t half bad.

(In the unlikely event you have time for some U.C., click here for the recipe for the Cheddar Pecan Biscuits.)

I like to call myself a domestic goddess. This makes me feel better when I have to clean up the dog vomit or wait six hours for the cable guy. While I spin around the house attending to such details, my husband goes out into the world to pursue what I’m pretty sure are crucial and fascinating things.

When he comes home at day’s end, I consider it share time. The way I figure it, it’s his house too. It would be unfair to withhold updates on the dog’s digestive complaints or the cable guy’s indifference.

When I show and tell, I have always believed that I have most if not all of Tom’s attention. This is because while he listens to me, he limits himself to one additional activity, such as watching ESPN—he keeps the volume respectfully low—or texting. For a champion multi-tasker, this restraint is impressive.

But when I told my friend Nancy about this she said, “Honey, he’s not listening. He’s faux-listening.”

Nancy went on to tell me that her husband Bob had what was, for a time, a foolproof system for appearing to be listening when he actually wasn’t. When, during a key NBA game, his wife would begin her litany of the day’s domestic events, Bob would pay just enough attention to pick up key words like “Radio Shack” or “groceries” and then skillfully punctuate her rant with a sympathetic, “Did you speak to the store manager?”

This strategy worked for a while, but Bob’s wife is no fool. Inevitably, she caught on.

One evening, after describing the demise of their dishwasher she added, “And I screwed the stock boy at Best Buy.,” Bob picked up the last two words of that sentence and, alerted to a cue, looked up from the Lakers Game and said, as usual, “Did you talk to the store manager?”

While this response to Nancy’s statement may have been oddly appropriate in content, it lacked the proper emotional tone.

Bob was so busted.

This story came to mind the other day when I began telling my husband about my run-in with a sales clerk at Brookstone. Tom was tapping on his Blackberry, never the best time to launch a conversation, but I was bursting with my story.

“So the guy tells me that a pillow is a ‘personal item’ so it can’t be returned once it’s opened. So I said that only when you open it do you know that the pillow smells like swamp gas. Who can sleep on that? He goes, “The smell will dissipate in time.” Can you believe he…”

At this point Tom looked up and said, “How do you spell ‘orchestra’?”

This led me to an “Aha!” moment: Tom was not faux-listening. He was just plain not listening.

What ensued was a lively discussion about the virtues of daily conversation, which ended peacefully, with the kind of promises that you know will have to be revisited during the NBA finals.

Anyway, domestic goddesses, beware the signs of faux-listineing and conduct regular tests, as Nancy did. (And if you end up with a smelly pillow at Brookstone’s, do what I did: talk to the store manager.)

Should you by any chance find yourself in the ladies’ room at the American Airlines lounge, you may hear a chorus of the “Happy Birthday” song wafting towards you from the sink area. Refrain from graciously informing the singers that you were actually born in October. They are not celebrating you or anyone else. Their chirping is an exercise in flu prevention.

You may have heard on NPR that in order to avoid that new ‘n nasty influenza, you must not rely on Purell alone. You should wash your hands in warm, soapy water for as long as it takes to sing the birthday song, about 20 seconds. (Although if you can’t remember the words or try to sing it like Alicia Keyes it could take longer.)

But let’s face it. if you are flu-phobic, an airport is a minefield. Even if you wash long enough to sing birthday greetings to everyone in your immediate family, when you leave the ladies’ room you have to deal with the issue of the doorknob. NPR reports that doorknobs are your worst enemies; each one is hosting a virus party.

You can try to open the door with a body part that is not your hands. I’ve tried using my elbow but found it inefficient, and I my feet have limited small motor skills. A better course, I think, is to wait for some sucker who does NOT listen to NPR to open the door the traditional way (oblivious to the fact that they have just sentenced themselves to a couple weeks of chicken soup and Netflix) and slip out in their wake.

But more challenges lie ahead. When you move on to the requisite pre-boarding stop at the news stand for junk reading and eating, don’t forget for a minute that the sales clerk has had hand-to-hand contact with a staggering number of current or future flu victims (including the lady who just did doorknob duty for you). Give the clerk your MasterCard and it will come back fully loaded. Instead, pick up your Lucky magazine and Junior Mints, place an adequate amount of cash on the counter and get the hell out of there.

Of course, the airplane itself is the worst, each one carrying germs as abundant, varied and aggressive as those in, say, Times Square.

NPR points out that you should never put stuff in the seat pocket in front of you, as that is where all those flu-flyers have stashed their used tissues. (I know, eeww.) So keep your magazine and mints inside your personal bubble, and don’t be intimidated by people who look at you funny when you pull out the Handi-wipes, face mask, Neosporin, Airborne, hand sanitizer and Flu-B-Gone.

Don’t drink water in flight or you will have to pee. Even if you don’t listen to NPR you know about the airplane bathroom. It’s like a Petri dish in there, and the TSA most likely confiscated your bleach bottle at security. On a long flight you may have to catheterize but stay OUT of that damn bathroom!

In the unlikely event that you get to your destination without picking up the norovirus or shingles or pneumonia or the flu or whooping cough or hoof and mouth disease or herpes, don’t be smug. Do NOT tell some less fortunate person who is writhing on the bathroom floor, thermometer dangling from Gatorade-stained lips, that “Prevention is the best cure.” The sick person will find this so annoying, she may even seek revenge. You could wake up with a doorknob on your pillow.

If you do not want to take out your pre-election stress on innocent pumpkins (per my advice in this previous post), alleviate it by revisiting this video.
No matter which side of the aisle you’re on, I promise you’ll get a voter’s re-charge with just one view.

Then go pour yourself an Obamamimosa, which, in the spirit of bipartisanship, you may refer to as a Mittmosa if you insist.

If you just can’t stand to think about politics for one more minute, if the whole thing is making your hair stand on end, turn your thoughts to Halloween.

On October 31st, some of you may be so freaked out by campaign cutups, you may feel ready to take out some of your anti-______ (fill in candidate’s name of choice) hostility by handing out raisins to innocent trick-or-treaters or TP-ing someone’s house or placing a burning sack of recently issued dog poop on a cheerfully decorated front stoop.

Instead, curb your rage and get aggressive on a pumpkin.

This video shows you how to create a lovely jack-o-lantern by piercing it multiple times with an electric drill, in a sort of Anthony Perkins meets Martha Stewart sort of way. Or click here to learn how make a delicious side dish by slicing the unsuspecting pumpkin viciously into slabs and roasting it in the oven.

Either of these activities will help you get a grip on your pre-election insanity. It’s not just you (and me) by the way, it’s sweeping the nation. Otherwise, why would Jack Welch tweet that stupid thing about the BLS? Why would Todd Akin say that other stupid thing he said on top of the first stupid thing? Why would Obama show up at the first debate disguised as a somnambulist? Why would I be writing this perverse post?

I personally am going to engage in the anxiety-diverting pumpkin-related activities mentioned above and then I am going to mix up a Wicked Witch Martini and curl up with a copy of “The Price of Politics.” No, make that “50 Shades of Grey.”

Trick or treat!

Due to a mishap at Hertz, we ended up with a Nissan Armada for our summer vacation car rental. For our smug, two-hybrid family, the Armada was an embarrassment, both in terms of size and fuel efficiency; it’s he kind of car you want to kick.

One day, we were driving maybe three miles per hour down a sandy, woodsy Cape Cod road, the potholes making our massive car rock like an amusement park ride that is not so amusing. A man and his wife—80-ish, right off the cover of AARP magazine—were walking towards us on the skinny road.

As they passed us on the passenger side, the guy banged his fist on the car, stuck his head in the window and yelled, with such force that he spat all over our daughter Nora, “What the hell do you think you’re doing driving this monster in here??!! You almost hit me with that damn mirror!”

He went on to yell other colorful stuff, and I didn’t really blame him. I mean the car was gross (although, as Nora would point out later, not as gross as the spit shower).

Now, it could be argued (as it was, with exasperation, by our other daughter, Elizabeth) that the man’s rage, which was a 10, might have been more like a 6, had it not been for the parking ticket that Tom had neglected to remove from the windshield.

(Tom has the unique ability to see fine print on NO PARKING signs that reads, “…unless you want to.”)

See, if you’re driving merrily around with a hot pink ticket flapping on your window, you should at least be driving a Prius. They don’t like scofflaws in Massachusetts, but they really don’t like the ones whose carbon footprint is the size of Godzilla’s.

I wonder if Tom would even have been ticketed in the first place (for parking creatively at the farmer’s market) if he’d had the decency to go food shopping in a car that was smaller than the Madison Avenue bus. He’s never been busted before and God knows he’s parked everywhere except handicapped spaces and tree tops.

We’ll never really know the answer to that. But if you are renting a vacation vehicle, and Hertz tries to dump that Armada on you, request something less offensive, which would be pretty much anything else on the lot.

It started as an innocent canoeing trip, in the final days of our family vacation, in a quiet bay in Cape Cod. Then it turned into a Steven Spielberg movie.

When I first saw the photo, I thought it was a hoax, that my niece Lily had strapped on a creative bathing cap for the purpose of scaring the bejeezus out of her father and her boyfriend.

But Lily was safely off-camera and that fin was attached to a shark that was a good deal larger than my niece. Even my brother-in-law John, with all his skill as a character actor, could not have summoned that facial expression for a phony fish.

The Cape this summer has been especially sharky. At the beaches there are warning signs, something I’ve never seen in all the years we’ve been there. The lifeguards answer our shark questions in the bored monotone that comes from repetition. “No, the great white doesn’t like the taste of humans. Yes, they will spit you out after sampling a limb.”

And when my daughter thought she saw the fin of a great white, they yawned at what must have been the twentieth “sighting” that day.

But should you find yourself in Wellfleet or Brewster or Chatham in the near future, make a note-to-self. If you see a grey fin in the water, it might not be your pesky, fun-loving cousin, pranking it up. It’s entirely possible that you’re gonna need a bigger boat.

Recently it dawned on me that I lack one of an aging boomer’s essentials: I have no bucket list.

Tom and I were having dinner on the patio of a pretty restaurant in Barcelona, when Tom said that we could now cross the city off our respective bucket lists. As I mentally attempted to do that, I realized that I had never gotten around to composing such a list.

How could I have reached my current ripe age without it?

I asked Tom what was on his list, besides Beyonce.

“No,” he said. “That’s another kind of list.” He and I have often discussed our “free pass” lists, which feature the names of people we would allow each other to sleep with, should the opportunities arise. I mean, if Beyonce beckoned, I wouldn’t hold it against Tom if he succumbed. If Denzel Washington sent me a DM on Twitter, I’d be free to follow up. (Okay, so we’re delusional.)

“Well, what about….grandchildren?” I asked Tom.

“Different list.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” How many lists can a person keep track of? I’ve already got the grocery one, the “do it today or else” one, the “do it when you have a ten minute window” one, the “ignore as long as possible” one, and others. What I really need is a list of my lists.

“Okay, so what the hell is on your bucket one?”

Tom began by saying that some of his items were things he knew were beyond his reach. (Right up there with Beyonce.)

“Climbing Everest. Probably won’t do that.” He would, however, likely get a chance to go helicopter skiing, possibly play golf in Augusta, and maybe sit center court at Wimbledon.

I was beginning to see a trend. His list (which, not to sound sexist, reeks of maleness) was about athletic spectacle and physical challenges.

The physical challenge that interests me most is getting my teeth whitened. (That item has already been committed to my “get around to it when I’m having a slow week” list.) I really would be just as happy not to run a marathon or parachute from a plane. But what do I want to do before I drop besides Denzel and grandchildren?

See, I believe that the best things that have happened to me in life are the things that I could not have imagined (marriage and babies, I assume, having been items assigned to that other list, the one with the grandchildren). I’m talking about the events or achievements that exceeded my expectations or desires and were therefore never listed anywhere. For example, I would never have thought to write, “Go to Tlacotalpan, a small village in Mexico two hours from Vera Cruz, where it is 110º and the bugs are the size of your foot.” But when I went there for work, I had some experiences as surprisingly magical as any I’ve had anywhere.

So maybe I won’t get too specific when I create my bucket list. I think I’ll just write, “More fabulous stuff,” and let the forces of life fill in the details. It’s worked out okay so far.

I’m toying with the idea of subscribing to DogTV. In case you (or your pooch) have not heard, that’s canine cable, a station designed for dogs to watch while their owners are out doing human activities.

DogTV features hours of dog-appropriate footage (like dogs romping, napping or riding in cars) alternating with nature shots (like a slug crawling across a patio), with a dog-friendly soundtrack. (How they determine that dogs prefer Louis Armstrong to Aerosmith is beyond me.)

The thing is, I think Oliver’s programming needs are already being met.

Currently, his favorite shows are ball-related. In fact, though its doubtful that it’s genetic, he shows a fascination with balls that I have only seen in one other creature: The human Oliver calls Dad. If there is an event involving a ball being televised anywhere in the world, Tom will watch it, and Oliver is the beneficiary of his obsession.

When Tom is not home and we are in an ESPN-free zone, Oliver will tolerate the Food Network (which I watch while exercising), although his attention wanders. Ina Garten’s recent lesson on roasting a beef filet had us both riveted, but she lost him with the gorgonzola sauce.

There are some shows for which Oliver has absolutely no patience. When I’m watching the PBS News Hour, Oliver will indicate his boredom by farting. On more than one occasion, he has subtly rolled over on the remote, sending the TV into a whirl of channel-switching that ended with the NBA playoffs.

Anyway, while I might prefer watching a slug parade to a Clippers game, I don’t think that’s the case with Oliver. The other day, when I was checking out DogTV’s programming samples, I was more mesmerized by the puppy footage than my dog was.

The fact is, after an especially gnarly day—don’t ever visit the dentist, back your car into a telephone pole and make lasagna in the same 24-hour period—I found DogTV relaxing, like watching a much cuter lava lamp. As I watched a poodle riding a surf board, a terrier wrestle a Jack Russell, a beagle gaze heavenward at drifting clouds, thoughts of tooth and bumper repairs and the recipe from hell lost their edge.

Oliver, however, was more intrigued by the neighbor’s Chihuahua nightly bark fest, and raced outside to respond.

Anyway, maybe I will subscribe to DogTV—for myself. At $9.99 a month, it’s a cheap way to chill.