The Story of the Radish Queen

so a little background on why i am the radish queen. there's another girl on xanga that's calling herself that so i'm sure sooner or later (probably when she reads this) we'll have a celebrity beef a la Ice T v. Soulja Boy but for now let me explain my own experience with these delightful little root veggies.

a couple of years ago i read the Robert O. and Shelley Redford Young book The pH Miracle. not exactly something i'm plugging here, but it did help me lose weight over the holidays.

when uni started up again i was still incorporating the alkaline juices that i'd learned about in the book into my daily diet. as part of this i carried around a nalgene bottle filled with collard-beet-black radish juice diluted down to 1:5 with water. well most of the time it was filled with water and a lemon slice (yeah i know, polycarbons) but at this particular french conversation group i had the radish drink with me.

we all know it's good to stay hydrated and veggie juice in general is pretty darn healthy stuff. but as i was to find out, the world's not ready for it yet. this french group wasn't an official class, it was an extension of our french class moderated by a native french speaker from senegal. so since we didn't have our professor it was a little harder to get space. luckily the language department had some tiny rooms with oblong tables for just this purpose. these rooms were small, i'm not kidding, barely enough room to pull out your chair.

we were all in our 20's except for an older woman, recent widow i believe who had come back for the "enrichment" of the college experience. i've known a lot of older students, and for the most part, they're awesome. very serious about classes, very interested in the subject matter, and often bringing in perspectives you wouldn't get otherwise. this woman was different. she was loud, dumb and disruptive. she held us back in the conversation group and complained constantly. no one liked her.

so here i was with my radish juice, she looked over in disgust "what in heavens are you drinking sasha?" i explained to her the composition of the beverage and she grimaced more. i handed the bottle to her and she opened and smelled it, causing her eyes to water. our conversation leader, amadou, was getting a little annoyed at this distraction, so i shut up and put the bottle away.

during the class i kept opening it periodically and drinking it. close to the end of class she interupted the teacher to say "you know i'm going to have to say this, i think it was very rude of you to bring this horrible thing into our classroom, and very disrespectful to our conversation leader." amadou facepalmed he was just trying to teach the class. nobody else really noticed the odor until she said something, i think she just got the smell in her nose when i handed it to her and couldn't stop thinking about it.

i won't mention this woman's name, but i'm sure you can imagine what a joy she was during the last quarter of class which took place in france. more on that later maybe...