CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddine
Bio
A widow, sharing experiences. SHARING LIFE LIVED, things seen, lessons learned & spreading peace where I can.
Call me "Gina" ( pronounced "jeena" ) short for REGINA
more at my original page https://vocal.media/authors/carmen-jimerson-cross
Stories (48/0)
CREAM OF WHEAT
I WAS NINE WHEN I STRUCK A MATCH TO MAKE BREAKFAST, and my seven year old brother struck his match to light the oven after turning the knob high overhead on the front of the stove he lay down on the floor in front of. It was our daily job... the requirement after getting up from the night's sleep awakened two hours prior by mom's gentle call from her bedroom out into the darkness of the basement apartment to rouse me... us from a night's sleep; before she left to go to work from the space our stepfather set us all into after they were married. Our five year old youger brother held the "cushy" option role of cutting a cold stick of margerine for buttering slices of Silvercup bread for toast that would accompany what was made by us, his two older siblings. We had to get our breakfast of, not cream of Wheat... I wasn't good at judging the "done" texture, so Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup, toast and milk after waking early enough for washing ourselves and getting dressed. We needed time to straighten the mess we made before leaving home. I had to remember to lock the door after successfully accomplishing our advent into the morning's tasks. We had to get ourselves to school in a new neighborhood deep inside Chicago's Northwest side. Once there, and once gone through the day well behaved, we had to get ourselves home and back inside the basement apartment to get our homework done and wait for mom to return to make dinner so that we could eat a family meal.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Feast
INTERNATIONAL PLANNING
WE PLEDGED TO WORK TOGETHER IN AN EFFORT TO EQUALIZE SISTER NATIONS and the populations therein by ending (or lessening) world hunger, battling the effects of "mother nature" and other unavoidable catastrophies. In this latest American Presidential administration there is talk of "battling alien intervention" to Earth's existence. To do any of those efforts prescribed to under such international organizations such as UNITED NATIONS, WORLD NEWS, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION, INTERNATIONAL PLANNING ASSOCIATION to name a few swore to work together in a humane manner. The divorce from prejudice to accomplish this togetherness did not excuse war acts and terrorism, but left no one nation out for assistance.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Earth
BESTIES
I CRIED WHEN ONE OF MY MAIN MEN DIED. He was there for me on repeated an predictable moments with an undying known mood. He died and was broadcast over live tv! It has taken a while to get over the "take away," after all, among all my friends he alone knew my common approach... without mistake. I've gone on and gotten past mourning a bit. I've learned other distractions, gotten a few new friends. Hilary beams at me reassuring that descent homes and real estate are, in fact, not a game formulated in my mind. Others have that level of steep imagination still going on even in today's broken world of life well past my own life's affiliation as a realtor. I let him slip away in exchange for brief glimpses at the likes of my past life co-worker, Dave as hestruggles not to drown or struggles not to succomb to gangsters, drug dealers and cranks. Real Estate was so much easier! His recent co-workers don't kow him like I did! (I'm determined NOT to get to caring for him... his wife is touchy.) With all the changes he never reaches his real personality... he does his acting for them... never being real anymore. Friends come and go, keeping their distance to a real business ideal. My besties, best friends who flavor my waking hours with all the affection allowed girl to girl and all the man to platonic female friend sincerity described in any dictionary. Rare to step out of line... except those related ties who could "bongee cord drop" in and zip back out of reach at their own moment's notice to get back on the job. Not OJ but COO J and impromptu meetings for whispered nothings over who has or gets gas in close... intimate spaces. My besties... within reach and so intimate when I accept the embrace and intensity of emotion provoked by them. They bring shrieks of horror. They bring coffee and sometimes cake... on a diet plate! They drift in with mention of weight but correct me if I take a wrong step toward it... pizza? no way... unless a friend, their friend is springing for the load...PIZZA HUT? fine. David! David would eat it all if you leave it there... but
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Confessions
Debit or Credit
When I moved into town I opened a bank account to arrange for direct deposits of my military pay. I opened the account with two newly received checks... the additional income was from government disability. Days later I returned to withdraw money for rent or grocery and was blocked by a bank agent threatening to call authorities on me if I did not leave the bank. She claimed I had a "deficit" in my account. I hadn't written a check nor made a withdrawal. The debit/credit process was explained to me by her... in total opposite of the standard GAAP process taught in college accounting courses everywhere via the FUNDAMENTALS OF ACCOUNTING by McGRAW HILL PUBLISHERS.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Criminal
WHO AM I... now?
I WITNESSED A MOST SPECTACULAR DOCUMENTARY based upon a book which summarized a study of mothers and their emotions regarding motherhood. REGRETTING MOTHERHOOD by ORNA DONATH searches the internal base of each woman who responded to a questionaire seeking the reason for becoming and ideal of withheld emotion and displayed emotion after becoming a mother of their children. Thought provoking in itself, the televised documentary appears to be rivaled by the book in that the hand held version is better suited to hold the attention of those internalizing their ownrationale for mixed feelings in performing the everyday tasks of motherhood. Some resolve PARENTHOOD to be the better description of their actions. Parenthood which lessens the burden mentally in that the other partner to parenting can be held to equal shares of responsibility.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Families
RIPPED
THE DELIVERY COMPANY NEEDED AT LEAST ONE NIGHT to rest over from the long haul of picking up vehicles south of Springfield, Missouri for an end route delivery north of Chicago in Glencoe, Illinois. The driver, a lone elderly hispanic man edging on his legal retirement year answered the phone to relay his message to the client who called back on the number left by the cellphone in his pocket. "I need a night's rest ma'am. Unless you're gonna be awake for delivery at around 2a.m. I won't be dropping your car off on schedule. If I shut my haul down right now for the night I can get there by nine or ten in the morning. I get a few hours shut eye and you got your car there in one peice on good time for your household... if you don't mind, or we can meet at 2 in the morning... I keep driving. I do have to unload the last pick up that's mounted on my rig behind your car... that will take about a half hour then we do the delivery paperwork and I take your check for the balance owed and get on my way to Chicago. What's it gonna be>" The old guy stopped talking just long enough to hear her sigh. He continued, I'm at a truck stop outside St Louis... upper part of St Louis where I got the last vehicle loaded on. If you can wait til morning... a decent hour of morning, that would be fine with me."
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in FYI
INVESTMENT ACCOUNTS
I PUT THE MONEY ON THE TABLE in the form of a deposit on the apartment and we moved out of mom's garage. That was the big end to my dream of setting aside money for my children to start life on... something I never had and was never thought of for having from anyone. Short of a SAVINGS BOND set up for me by my maternal grandmom, nothing had ever been prearranged... that I know of. Sure, there was life insurance to cover dependents on mom's job back when we were younger, but children were never intended to benefit from that... it was to put us into the ground "in the event." And there was the traditional WHOLE LIFE POLICY which would cover the cost of burial at the penny up premiums charged by LIFE INSURANCE COMPANIES who would pay for burial or refunds of what was paid in prenium amounts "if death did not occur." I had a plan to move us ahead in spite of my children's father creating a need to escape him in our younger days. I was 18 when I left and by 19 I was divorced. The children and I were still alive and there was another woman in my place and already dodging fisty punches from him... her and her baby girl. At any rate, the apartment I signed onto for us was actually a three bedroom townhouse apartment just across the state line. It was in easy reach to mom's house, grandma's house, my military unit and my job. I opted for it in the ruxh to recover from having lost at buying my first home... a three bedroom cottage house on the street some ten blocks or so north of my grandmother's house. I would have been in close vicinity to all of our relatives. Instead, I signed onto a townhouse being cleared of its prior tenant by the Realtor/Owner and his son. I cashed in two investment accounts set up by me for my son and daughter's future. I cashed them in and was so agonized for having to do it using money intended for them that I cried before and after doing so... cried for the entire weekend. I figured we would never get a home of our own. I was never managing to save anything. I had to cash the accounts in due to a rush from my stepfather who insisted on our "getting out" of mom's house after my return from military basic training. I had come out, settled the arrangement with mom as having been my signed temporary guardian for the time of which I was gone. After having settled with her, I located a house and put a downpayment on it... without spending into our investment monies. WADELL&REED INVESTMENT AGENCY held three accounts, one for each of my children and one for myself as a retirement fund. It was the second attempt at making the attempt to not be dependent in my latter years. The first, set up with EQUITABLE ASSURANCE on my first job with the State of Illinois at the early age of 21 years, became lost in a tangle of credentials theft while I was away at military training. I had placed my everything into a storage shed at SPACE PLACE STORAGE and the women operating the site did away with my everything stored. I cashed in the accounts held for my children on the advice of the agent... District Manager in the Chicago area... who came to my mother's home, sat on her sofa beside me and drew the paperwork to close two and hold onto the one. I could "...restart the children's accounts any time... they had longer options than did I." I signed the paperwork and within a week had the money for the townhouse. I lost the deposit money put down on the little cottage house, but were not in the streets as we would have been. The closing on the sale of the small house was schedule for that weekend... three or four days after being pushed out of mom's house by her husband. I was 27, my children were 10 and 12. My own husband was wayward when I enlisted into the military, and was wayward by exact definition when I returned... when I signed onto a place to live and before and after losing the first home purchase ever attempted. He hadn't been around since before losing the apartment signed for in his and my name, located further out in the suburbs. He ahd quit his job one day, decided he wasn't going to work for a living and left. It was the last I had seen of him except that he showed up to help move heavy items from the apartment out of the moving truck I rented, into the second of two storage sheds I put a deposit on. He had signed for the latter of the two in our rush to close out the business of leasing the storage unit before close of day. He was the one who showed his face as they locked the office doors. They assumed he was the paying party on the contract. It was me. It was before I left for military training. It was the last I saw of him. They blocked me from paying on "his" storage shed. They blocked me from collecting my possessions. The children and I moved the items of the first storage shed into our townhouse apartment. I was consoled in that I still had my retirement account with WADDELL&REED set by their District Manager.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Trader
Pate'
She grabbed the bottle and ran. There wasn't much time for struggling through the mechanics of brewing, stilling and aging of alcohol, it just was not... had not been her proficiency in all of her 33 years of living. This would do... it was alcohol... whiskey as good as any of the others on the shelf at Osco Drugs. Her classmate was having a spontaneous birthday party sponsored by her husband who had invited a few of her closest friends. She promised to stop through and so she was... bringing along the requested ingredient for a last minute chicken liver pate' being whipped up by her classmate's mom. It hadn't cost much... it was only a few bucks for a pint of liquor to season the liver smoothy, and they could keep the rest of it for a nightcap. She'd made the suggestion just before dashing out to her car. The stop into the grocery store presented only the larger bottles, more than they needed. The clerk referred her to the Osco Pharmacy at the end of the store aisle. There wasn't much time to waste, it was her scheduled day to work and she could not call in just to attend a college classmate's birthday. Minutes later she was standing in fron of her friend's co-op townhouse. She was met at the door by the man of the house. Handed over her gift and extended the bottle of a;cohol explaining that their local market did not provide other thana fifth of brandy... use the whiskey.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Feast
BERBER
I CHECKED THE PANTRY THIS MORNING and found this container on the shelf among my usual seasonings... basil, rosemary, parsley, thyme and coriander. There was the harissa and five spice that I mixed myself, along with the sea salt, garlic, celery salt, celery seeds, and and cardamom. The fennel and cumin were in place as were the chili powder and tumeric. Marjoram... and not bay leaves, but sage in leaf and ground leaf status. The mystery I'm calling down is the appearance of BERBER SEASONING on my uppermost shelf. Where id it come from? I don't know what it goes into, what nation it buffers or what guest (of the few that appear here) could have left it behind. Guests to my home come on rare occaision and live for chili by the pot load. They send chili to other folks homes and come out to reclaim their containers if necessary. There was once a co-worker whose LASAGNA spilled over into our household... from an office POTLUCK event. Seasonings were never exchanged and it was his mom's recipe and handiwork that brought it here for comaprison with my own. She did not use BERBER to make it. I did consider the JAMAICAN JERK CHICKEN recipe that rolled through with my daughter on a one day in town visit. Her chilcren boastfully acclaim an illgotten affiliation with an "over seas" origin as "wanna be Jamaicans" with the one love of Bob Marley, or "could a been fantasy stem from one time King of Ethiopia, Haille Salassie" and the swale of 1960s business venture that became the Rastafari Movement. All this said, I have no idea what that has to do with my pantry. Her boys stand by a black and brown assertion of their entry into life by attaching Rastafarian names and hairstyles to their lives. One other point, none of the boys nor their mother cook when they come here. They generally do not eat when they come here; and they rarely come here. The last to visit claimed to have become vegetarian... berber seasoning is applied to meat. I rest that case.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Feast
STORAGE
SHE WAS HEFTY, an older caucasian woman in her late fifties, and had long lost her accent that belied her Irish origins. Her hair was straggled and wrapped with a bandana tied "head band" fashion to block any sweat incurred during any day's work at the sheds. Adrianne managed the family storage shed business situated in a calm suburb among a population struggling to "become society" out of the edge of a suburban kettle of "have nots." Today whe was going out to purge the late pay bins for discovery of what the company could recapture from bad rentals. There were ten out of the two hundred sheds scattered across the one acre lot, one hundred fifty of which were leased to persons of varied backgrounds. Today's lottery would need to cover the month's mortgage payment on her home and lot utilities. She had remortgaged her home in a family deal through which they had purchased an acre of vacant land along the highway at the edge of town. The land was paid for outright but the sheds purchased to establish a storage facility demanded monthly payments to the note of $50,000. She rauched the sleeves of her sweatshirts and headed for the office door, " Mildred, I'm gone out to make count. I'm starting with shed B32... after working over to aisle C I'll stop back in the office. We can switch places, okay." The slightly younger woman at the counter waived her on out the door. It was going to be a long day. End of the month tallys and accounting, bill payments and purging late pays or abandonded accounts were all just part of the job. The regular inflow of hopeful renters added to the burden of the women's on site lock in position on every day's 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m. shift. They were their own employees. Every few days Joan, another family member, stopped in to go out to lunch or bring a meal to be enjoyed by all three women. Joan was due to stop in for lunch hour chat.
By CarmenJimersonCross-Safieddineabout a year ago in Humans