Pickup cooking

We seem, again, to have picked up Thanksgiving: last year, our friends were going to have a big Thanksgiving bash, but all came down with various versions of the dreaded lurgy a few days earlier. LOML and I immediately decided to pick up the slack, and invited several suddenly dis-invited guests to our place instead.
This year, said friends, yes, the same family, are having their house remodelled. And in spite of the fact that they were adamant to the builders and contractors and all that it was essential that it be finished by late summer, it is still not done. And it won't be done by Thanksgiving. In fact, it won't be done by the time of the great annual rotating Christmas parade party, which they were going to host (to show off the beautiful remodelling job!) this year.
We're not picking up the party --- we did that one last year too, by choice --- it is the sort of huge bash that one can only host once every few years. But we will pick up the turkeyfest.

Yours, always happy to play in from the bench,
N.