Some Pig.

It is accomplished.  The pernil marinated in adobo, recaito, garlic, and sour orange for 12 hours, then roasted low 'n slow for another 8.  The result was crunchy, juicy, creamy, toothsome, intensely seasoned, and pretty much worth the modicum of effort it required.  I have the advantage of living in a largely Dominican neighborhood, where I have at my disposal a constant supply of great picnic shoulders (not a cut every meat counter has all the time), six kinds of adobo, twelve kinds of recaito, both frozen and jarred,  and about ten kinds of pre-peeled/pre-crushed/pre-pureed garlic.  It's a pernil-eating kind of place.  Cannot really find much in the way of, say, organic milk, good coffee, bagels, etc.  But this forces one to branch out, and in this case, with great success.  We served it with buttered peas and steamed rice and beer, and it was outstanding.  And, it must be said, fairly economical:  The entire 8 pound butt was about $5.95.  If I had not used all the very good frozen recaito, pureed garlic, and sour orange marinade, I could've made those things last for 2-3 pernils.  And rice and peas... cheap.  So all you really have to do is plan ahead to make a cheap, luscious meal that will give you some of the most outstanding leftovers this side of Thanksgiving.

A note to myself (and to anyone else attempting pernil for the first time): it really would've helped to cook it in a Dutch oven for most of the time.  This would've concentrated the heat, melted the fat and caused the meat to self-baste better.  Mine did self-baste with its foil tent, but a few parts of the meat were a little on the dry side.  Then again, there were many good, crunchy bits (what my husband and I refer to as "pork candy").

Tonight I got to work on another sampler, designing it on my computer and tracing the design onto muslin.  Gotta make sure I have a good supply of embroidery projects to do on the train.  Also began work on the first of several planned wedding albums.  Yes, I married in 2002 and still have not made my wedding album yet.  Anyhow, I finally got around to scanning, photoshopping, cropping and organizing something around 500 pictures (we had no digital media, sad to say, so this all was based on our proofs), and am now making scrapbook-type albums.  Once the photos are printed, the various materials assembled (glue, paper cutter, punches, stamps, etc.) the putting-together is both fun and quick.  But the preparation has taken months, literally.