Thanksgiving turkey, soup, and cupboard doors

Living in cohousing creates an amazing amount of synergy. You may wonder what that word means. My Canadian Oxford dictionary gives a rather stodgy definition of synergy as "the increased effectiveness, achievement, etc. produced by combined action, co-ooperation, etc."

Well, at Pacific Gardens, it's much more interesting, often heart-warming, and occasionally funny.  The most recent example involves the cooking of our Thanksgiving turkey, the making of some delicious soup from its carcass, and the fixing of three broken cupboard doors.

We are most fortunate to have a splendid chef living in our midst, Mykl Love, so naturally, he took on the task of cooking our Thanksgiving turkey last week, using herbs from our garden as seasoning for the yummy dressing.  Needless to say, it was a gourmet feast!

There was a big carcass from the remains of the 22-pound bird, so Mykl put out a call for someone to make soup from it, and Doris Jensen responded, bringing a huge pot of succulent turkey broth full of veggies for us to enjoy at our regular Thursday night potluck.

Now, although Pacific Gardens has the latest in environmentally-friendly design features, the hinges on our kitchen cupboards are not among them. They have the annoying habit of falling apart with only the slightest of use. The day after the potluck Mykl e-mailed us all with a plea to help fix some of his.

"I'm having a heck of a time in our unit with the cupboard doors becoming unhinged from their brackets," he wrote.  "Has anybody else had this problem?  It has happened on three cupboard doors already and I'm concerned because I can't figure out at all how they go back on.  The screwy system makes no sense to me.  Is there anybody who can offer their expertise in this?"

Eileen, our feisty 86-year-old, immediately e-mailed him back and said: "Only three fell off??? --------Welcome to Pacific Gardens!!!! You have now been  initiated into the clan!!!! Just have a chat with John and that will soothe your nerves and frustrations. And it might even fix your doors????" (John is on our Building and Maintenance Committee.)

Of course, I immediately thought of Kaj Jensen, who had figured out an efficient and inexpensive solution to the cupboard door problem, and e-mailed Mykl to consult him. In no time all of those pesky cupboard door hinges were fixed. 

Kaj is the husband of Doris, who made the soup from the carcass of the turkey that Mykl cooked. That's definitely synergy in action, Pacific Gardens style!

Kathryn