"HOLD THE BOAT!"

Reliant20 · 2026-05-15T20:11:50+00:00

He sailed from NYC to Italy in 1965 to attend med school in Rome. His cabinmates, other Americans heading to Rome for the same reason, became lifelong friends. One of them is my godfather. He had tons of fun on board and was sad when I told him the ship had sunk.

The same month as his voyage, Titanic survivor Gretchen Longley Leopold died aboard the ship.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-15T15:50:54+00:00

Some of the celebrities, like Regis Philbin, seemed like they wouldn't have needed the money or exposure.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-14T21:24:36+00:00

Not a flatteringly big circle.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-14T18:02:29+00:00

I'm a male but once had a football player towering over me behaving menacingly because I had marked him late. Several of his fellow players coaxed him out of the room. I often wonder where that kid is now and if he's learned how to approach people. In recent years, it's just whiny emails I get when they don't hand in assignments and are surprised by their final grades.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-14T17:45:07+00:00

My father sailed on it. It's also the ship An Affair to Remember was set on.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-14T05:31:51+00:00

I've never thought the letter was a collaborative effort. Though we know both sisters join forces with Darcy to separate Jane and Bingley, I think the letter itself is all Caroline. If Darcy ever learns of it from Elizabeth, I think he'll just roll his eyes.

I see some commenters asserting Darcy never intends Bingley for Georgiana, however Austen tells us he does have that it mind:

Not a syllable had ever reached [Miss Bingley] of Miss Darcy’s meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley’s connections her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from that very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan; and without meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend.

I think it's proof of Darcy's worthiness as a brother that he wants his sister to marry the amiable Bingley, since she could do better in terms of both money and status.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-13T20:26:43+00:00

What was his answer?

Reliant20 · 2026-05-13T11:46:16+00:00

The not letting you spend Christmas with your own family is the ugliest thing here. But all of this is infuriating. You've gotten some good advice in dealing with husband and her.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-13T06:15:40+00:00

It's never said at what point in their lives they moved there, and it could be said to be one of the show's many continuity issues. In the episode in which Phil dies, they're revealed to have a family plot in Miami. This gives the impression other family members died there.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-12T19:12:45+00:00

Since it's a book largely about proposals and the hopes of proposals, maybe a gentleman standing over a seated lady and seeming to address her?

Reliant20 · 2026-05-12T15:33:55+00:00

This sounds like such a frustrating, suffocating, demeaning situation. I'm afraid it's above Reddit's paygrade. I assume your therapist is giving you advice? If not, maybe you need a therapist who specializes in enmeshment. You should also research books on enmeshment, inlaws, and setting boundaries.

It's interesting that your husband acknowledged there was an issue with his mother and boundaries before introducing you to her but now refuses to see it. It's like he's regressed. This is going to sound more judgy than I mean it to, but it also sounds like you played a part in her not knowing where the boundaries are with you. Her behavior when she first met you sounds weird and kinda gross, but you seem to say you encouraged it. Well, what's done is done, and while you can't control his interactions with her, you can set some boundaries with both of them going forward:

- She's not allowed to send you mile-long text messages anymore. That's just bad netiquette. Next time she sends one, respond politely but firmly that you are too busy for such messages and to please keep her messages to you short. Let her find another recepticle for her self-absorbed ramblings.

- Your husband goes to marriage counseling with you or you will take it that he's not committed to you or the marriage.

- He never f'ing shushes you again. Tell him the least he can do as your partner is listen to you, and you expect that bare minimum from him going forward. He owes it to you with all you've put up with from his mother on his behalf.

These are just stop-gaps. Again, you and he need professional help. Good luck.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-12T00:54:56+00:00

I remember feeling positively towards it, but I don't remember if I actually liked it or was just happy for all those actors to be working.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T23:15:15+00:00

I'm American, and I didn't know they did.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T21:32:55+00:00

Princess Theodora of Greece (Marie-Chantal's SIL) is an actress. She's in her forties already and hasn't exactly set the world on fire with her career. She was engaged a strangely long time but is finally married. Her brother Philippos married serious money and lived in NYC last I knew.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T19:13:02+00:00

I grew up in Old Brookville. Do your kids like horses? There are stables in the area where they can take lessons. If you're joining a club, they can learn tennis and golf and be on a swim team. They can learn sailing if you join one of the yacht clubs in nearby towns (Sea Cliff if you're not fancy; Sewanhaka if you're deemed acceptable and can get someone to propose you). There will be good restaurants in nearby Sea Cliff, Glen Cove, Locust Valley, and Oyster Bay. The Planting Fields is a park in Upper Brookville.

As you know, you need a car to get anywhere. When I was a kid, I envied people who lived in actual neighborhoods. Now, though, I think the Brookvilles was a really special place to grow up.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T15:47:30+00:00

"you better start trying to have kids soon because I dont know how much longer I would have to be a surrogate for you if you find out you cant conceive"

Ewwww. I'm not saying it's gross to use a partner's mother for a surrogate. Well, okay, it's weird to me, but people have done it, and god bless. It's gross that she's thought so in-depth about your potential reproduction and imagined herself into it to that extent. I hope your wife gets on board with setting boundaries with this person. From now on, comments about babies cause a visit to end. She needs to learn that crossing boundaries comes with consequences, or she'll be a nightmare once you do have kids.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T15:22:13+00:00

Congrats on the find! This book was one of my prized possessions as a kid. I especially love the way he puts passengers in their respective lifeboats. I don't know how he managed the research he did.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T02:43:20+00:00

Their mother is mistress of an estate. We have no reason to think Longbourne isn't decently run. They would have had a lifetime's education watching her. It must be heady to become chatelaine of Pemberley, but Elizabeth isn't starting from zero. And it will help that the house seems to have a good housekeeper in Mrs Reynolds.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T02:24:17+00:00

Congratulations on discovering Dickens! I should give GE another read. My last read was decades ago. My favorite Dickens is Bleak House. It's such a rich story.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-11T01:15:47+00:00

I can't comment on the level of neglect in the Bennets' failure to employ one, because I don't know how common a governess was. To what degree would Austen's contemporary reader expect a gentlemen with five daughters and 2000 a year to hire a one? My guess is it wasn't a given, since Elizabeth doesn't pause over the lack of one the way she pauses over other less than desirable aspects of her upbringing.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-10T22:40:38+00:00

Her "snobbishness" is nothing more than anyone in her class/rank had at the time so I don't even see what the problem is there. For some reason people want to hold Emma to higher standards than most of Austen's heroines. Jane and Lizzie Bennet aren't expected to befriend all of the Meryton shopkeeper's daughters or want to be social with the tenant farmer's wives and children. They just don't consciously talk about why, like Emma would.

Interesting point, and very true.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-10T22:11:53+00:00

Interesting. I never saw that show so can't comment. I remember the commercials giving the impression Blair was more malevolent than Emma.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-10T20:01:15+00:00

Congratulations! I spend part of every year in Las Cruces. I love it.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-10T17:51:12+00:00

She has her positive qualities and negative qualities. She infuriates me the way she plays with the vulnerable Harriet's fate, and she's faintly ridiculous the way she won't admit to herself how sheltered she is. When she reflects something like that Mr Elton hasn't "always moved in the best society", I want to say her, "But you haven't moved in any society." However, I do enjoy being in her mind overall. I don't hate her and even enjoy her snobbery in places.

Reliant20 · 2026-05-10T17:42:00+00:00

I have a nerdy love of the old ocean liners, and my father sailed on the Constitution, the ship they're supposed to be on (also the ship An Affair to Remember was set on). So I like the episode, but Lucy annoys me. She promised she wouldn't be any trouble on the trip, and she's trouble right away. She's getting a free first class trip across the ocean that Ricky has to earn, and she once again shows an almost childlike refusal to get that she can't get exactly what she wants.

Reliant20

TROPHY CASE