THE OLD CROWD – INTRO

[hg_skmg]

Hello, folks, and many thanks to you all for allowing me to share 
board space with such distinguished posters -- particularly, I'm 
grateful to dear Jen Reese for recommending me for the invitation; I 
hope I can demonstrate adequately the soundness of her judgment!

hg.


THE OLD CROWD – INTRO

***Name:
Sally Gallo

***Nicknames/IDs:
hg; hermionegallo, gumshoe

***Age:
36

***Family:
Married, with 4 children ages 1 1/2 to almost 8.  Various pets slimy, 
scaly, furry, too many in number to list.

***Home
Virginia, USA, on a dead end street with a creek.

***Birthday, Place of Birth:
March 14, Ohio

***Education/Job/Role in Life etc:
I have a Bachelor's in Theatre; later I earned the equivalent of a 
Bachelor's in English, which qualified me for a masters program in 
Creative Writing -- my MFA is in playwriting.  I am doing nothing 
notable with these credentials; my job is to raise my children.

***Other things we might want to know about you:
I have a limited scope of reference -- I'm probably not as well-read 
as most of you -- but my imagination and logic very nearly should 
compensate for that shortcoming.  I've been posting for over two 
years and was trained up on HP4GU.
I'm an INFX -- that's equal parts P and J at the end.
My oldest child is bipolar, and this doubles the isolation my husband 
and I already automatically experience as the parents of four small 
children: we have some limits on what activities we can expect to 
participate in and must actively manage our children perhaps more 
than the next parents. (I mostly don't regret it.) 

***First contact with Harry Potter:
Summer 1999, pregnant with my second child, I was approached by my 
husband with the first two books, who insisted that I must read 
them.  We've eagerly awaited subsequent releases together, and I know 
I'm lucky that we both enjoy the series equally, even if our opinions 
sometimes differ.

***Favourite Potter things (books, characters, ships, fics, objets
d'Art, general enthusing):
Order of the Phoenix was my favorite book.  I love the old guys, the 
history; I love the pace of that book, the time taken, the excessive 
length (yes).  HBP was nicely pared down for more rapid pace and for 
the purpose of getting the information out (and so much of it) -- but 
it seemed she trimmed too much in some areas.
Not a big shipper; it's fun but not the meat of it for me.  Moody and 
Slughorn interest me more, and the Longbottoms, and Lily.

***Extent of Potter obsession:
I spent several months post-OoP compiling an obscene number of 
possible anagrams for "Droobles Best Blowing Gum."

***Other interests/activities:
nature walks with our children, photography

***Current/recent reading:
Either it's books my children have chosen (these range from board 
books to field guides of reptiles and amphibians in North America) or 
reference books I've chosen in an effort to better my children's 
lives.  I've got quite a nice little library of those.  "Systemic 
Parenting" by Mark Gaskill is particularly good; and I 
enjoyed "Upside-down Brilliance: the Visual-Spatial Learner" 
(Silverman), although I gained nothing from that to help me help my 
son.  (He's brilliant, and he's often upside-down, but otherwise I 
saw myself in the book more than him.)

***Current/recent listening:
When I have a choice, music or silence, I choose silence.  Before my 
children I was not this way.

***Current/recent viewing:
Law & Order: Criminal Intent and Monk, both of which used to be good 
but have gone downhill.  Otherwise, it's 64 Zoo Lane, Thomas the Tank 
Engine, and Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter).