u/NaturoHope

I was recommended a 12V cooler so I don't have to load up on ice on my extended road trip (maybe 1-3 months?). I'll be driving only 2 hours at a time and spending several days to a couple weeks at each camp. I imagine needing to drive to town every 3-4 days to recharge appliances and handle laundry.

I'll likely need a solar panel and battery to run the 12V cooler. After crunching the numbers, I'm disheartened to see that I could easily spend around $800 on the cooler and a budget solar setup and have barely any power leftover to use my heated blanket or anything like that.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's smarter to just get a normal cooler (maybe a brand like RTIC or Yeti?) and deal with getting ice every few days.

What are your thoughts? Are there other benefits I'm not seeing to having a power station and a bit of solar? Is it still worth getting a 12V cooler—maybe even filling it with ice when I need to save battery? I'm looking at one on Amazon that is $200-230 ish. I'm on the west coast USA, Pacific Northwest but heading towards southern California beaches and possibly desert.

I'm between residences and have been trying to find a group home for a while. My caseworkers are extremely busy and difficult to get ahold of. They'd send 10 inquiries, I'd get maybe one or two homes to tour after like 2 weeks, and I'd have to practically harass them to get more. I was fed up with the pace. After waiting weeks upon weeks to try to get placed, I took matters into my own hands today, searched up a spreadsheet of local group homes, did some work sorting it, and sent an email to every single one that was in my desired county. 120 homes. With my phone number at the bottom of my email. This approach worked fine with subsidized housing in the past. I honestly thought maybe 10% of the group homes would respond to me, considering that's been the rate at which my caseworkers have fed them to me. I was so wrong.

I couldn't remember why my caseworkers didn't want me to take matters into my own hands, but now I remember. Many of these group home coordinators are desperate to fill rooms to the point where they will harass you. I wish I had thought to list my Google Voice number. I forgot that these are total strangers, and not all of them are nice.

I've been receiving phone call after phone call, to the point where I feel stressed and distracted talking on the phone because I am getting calls while I am taking calls.

There's no way to turn it off, and I am overwhelmed and on the verge of a meltdown. I'm embarrassed that this is how I conducted myself.

If anyone has any tips, please let me know. I really hope I don't have to change my phone number. It's the one number I have always had and I really love it.

TL;DR: I was tired of my social workers taking too long to place me, so I sent an email blast to 120 homes, and now I'm too overwhelmed with calls to even speak to them. I wish I could un-send an email.

I have a friend, “Alan,” who I knew from high school improv. I dated his younger brother my senior year. I struggled socially in high school, so it meant a lot to reconnect with Alan a few years ago and discover that he had always thought I was cool. He’s one of the funniest people I’ve ever known.

When we reconnected, Alan told me his girlfriend (now wife) was abusive and very jealous. We made plans to hang out with some of his friends at the river, but she became jealous and repeatedly interfered until he eventually canceled. I had set the whole day aside and waited for him to pick me up.

Instead of leaving her, he married her, they had a child, and now they’re expecting their second. He also talks about buying a house together.

Then Alan stopped responding to me for an entire year. He says he was just being introverted, but I have a hard time believing that was the whole story given what happened before.

More recently, we made plans to go on a nature walk. He said he was bringing his toddler, but unexpectedly showed up with his wife too. She complained of a stomachache and had him leave almost immediately. Later, Alan admitted that she had been jealous. Another time, I called him one evening just to chat, and his wife unexpectedly answered the phone.

These incidents have been really jarring. It feels like she sees me as a threat, and Alan seems unwilling or unable to set a boundary around his friendships. He says he thinks things will get better once she's finished this pregnancy, but this has been going on for years.

I care about him a lot and I'm sad to lose the friendship. Part of me wonders whether I should keep trying, especially because I worry he may be in an unhealthy relationship and might need someone he trusts. At the same time, he’s about to have two very young children, and he seems committed to his marriage.

I recently told him that I hope he learns to set boundaries and decide for himself whether he’s willing to let his wife determine which friendships he can have, because otherwise our friendship will continue to have friction. Now I'm wondering if even saying that was overstepping.

What would you do in my position? Would you keep reaching out and leave the door open, or accept that Alan isn't currently capable of maintaining this friendship and step back?

TL;DR: My friend married his abusive/jealous gf, and there's friction in our friendship because of this. How can I navigate this?

Scared the heck out of me. They said that I failed to report to jury duty, was held in contempt of court, and had a warrant out for me.

The caller gave me a name and badge number, probably scraped from a legitimate database.

They said I would need to pay a $2500 refundable fee to suspend the warrants so I wouldn't be arrested. They said that I legally can't tell anyone, nor hang up the phone, because of a "make and maintain contact order" and a "suppression gag order". I was shaking. They were very convincing. I put them on hold while I called the county sheriff's office, who told me, "It's a scam. We are aware of it."

Make sure you're aware too. Always, always find out the name of the office or person calling, Google that number, and call it. Do not send any money until you have confirmed through an official source that you are speaking to a legitimate official, if at all. Beware of people using scare tactics to make a matter seem urgent. Beware of restricted numbers.

My doctor ordered a bunch of blood tests through Quest, and I'm having the hardest time actually getting into one of their labs.

No one ever answers the phones. If I call, it just directs me to the website. They say they accept walk-ins, but every time I go, there are no openings because appointments are prioritized. When I try to make an appointment instead, they're usually several days out. The only same-day appointments I usually see are in Vancouver, WA, and I'm not sure whether that would cause issues with my Oregon insurance.

The bloodwork is supposed to be fasting, which makes scheduling especially difficult because my sleep schedule is all over the place due to the health issues I'm being tested for.

My doctor says he can't send the order to LabCorp, so I'm unfortunately stuck with Quest.

Has anyone figured out the trick to getting seen as a walk-in? Is it best to go at a certain time of day, or is there some other strategy that actually works?

I'm at my wit's end here. I've tried several rentals and keep having environmental issues with my health, except at one I tried that was recently renovated. For context, I lived at a rental with mold for several years, so I'm extremely sensitized to it. Spending a week or less in a moldy place can lead to me no longer being able to sleep at all because my whole body tremors.

I know mold is a huge problem here, but I'm hoping to stay in Portland through the summer while I tie up some loose ends*. It seems like my best bet is newer buildings, which usually means apartments, but most of them require a 6-12 month lease at minimum. I need flexible rental terms, preferably week to week or at most month to month, so that I can exit if symptoms return.

Where can I look? Has anyone else struggled with this too?

* I'm open to relocating to another city, but all my medical care is in Portland, and my friends and social supports, and the stored things that I'm hoping to clear out of my old residence. I'll need time to sell my car too, unless I drive it to a new city to sell there.