Jimmy’s Cafe – Albuquerque, New Mexico
The first (and probably most important) English words my parents taught me before my first day of school were “May I please go to the restroom?”. That simple phrase was the beginning of my love-hate relationship with the English language. English can be a confounding language if it’s your primary language, but learning it as a second language is brutal. I thought I’d never pick up the many complicated sets of rules (and their variations) governing how English is spoken and written. English remains a challenge for me to this day (and for exposing you to my multitudinous grammatical fox paws and malapropisms, I sincerely apologize). Even English names were a challenge to learn because many of them have diminutive counterparts which don’t…