Problem: My cat's name is Buggleton. She is black and white with big green eyes and very long whiskers, like a bug.

When I woke up this morning, my cat was not inside the house. She is allowed outside, and we have a cat door in the kitchen so she can come and go as she pleases. She comes home at night, sleeps in her special box, and is here for breakfast before going outside for new adventures. We can lock the cat door so she can't go outside when we go on vacation. If we go on vacation for more than a few days, my mom comes over to check on her and feed her.

So it was very weird to wake up and see that she was not home for her morning food! My husband and neighbor and I called for her, but she did not come. Guess where she was? Trapped in the garage overnight!
1. What is your cat's name?
2. Male or female?
3. What color are her eyes?
4. Do you let her go outside?
5. Where is the cat door?
6. Where does she sleep at night?
7. Do you ever lock the kitty door?
8. Who looks after your cat when you go away?
9. Is is strange for Buggleton to not be home for breakfast?
10. Who helped you look for her?
11. Did she appear when you said her name?
12. Where did you find her?
13. How long had she been stuck there?
Answer: 1. Buggleton
2. female
3. green
4. yes
5. in the kitchen
6. her special box
7. when we go on vacation
8. my mom
9. yes
10. my husband and neighbor
11. no
12. in the garage
13. overnight

Q: When Marilynne Robinson published her first novel, Housekeeping, in 1980, she was unknown in the literary world. But an early review in The New York Times ensured that the book would be noticed. "It's as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions, and achieved a kind of transfiguration ," wrote Anatole Broyard, with an enthusiasm and amazement that was shared by many critics and readers. The book became a classic, and Robinson was recognized as one of the outstanding American writers of our time. Yet it would be more than twenty years before she wrote another novel.

During the period, Robinson devoted herself to writing nonfiction. Her essays and book reviews appeared in Harper's and The New York Times Book Review, and in 1989 she published Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution, criticizing severely the environmental and public health dangers caused by the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant in England--and the political and moral corruption . In 1998, Robinson published a collection of her critical and theological writings, The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought, which featured reassessments of such figures as Charles Darwin, John Calvin, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Aside from a single short story--"Connie Bronson," published in The Paris Review in 1986--it wasn't until 2004 that she returned to fiction with the novel Gilead, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Her third novel, Home, came out this fall.

Her novels could be described as celebrations of the human--the characters in them are unforgettable creations. Housekeeping is the story of Ruth and her sister Lucille, who are cared for by their eccentric Aunt Sylvie after their mother commits suicide. Robinson writes a lot about how each of the three is changed by their new life together. Gilead is an even more close exploration of personality: the book centres on John Ames, a seventy-seven-year-old pastor who is writing an account of his life and his family history to leave to his young son after he dies. Home borrows characters from Gilead but centers on Ames's friend Reverend Robert Boughton and his troubled son Jack. Robinson returned to the same territory as Gilead because, she said, "after I write a novel or a story, I miss the characters--I feel like losing some close friends."

Answer the following questions:
1. Which book by Robinson is about Ruth and her sister Lucille?
2. When was it written?
3. How many years passed before she wrote another novel?
4. What did she write in between?
5. What did she publish in 1989?
6. And where did some of her essays and book reviews show up?
7. What did she publish in 1998?
8. What figures did it reassess?
9. What single short story did she write?
10. What did Anatole Broyard say about Housekeeping?
11. Who published Connie Bronson?
12. In what year?
13. When did Robinson start writing fiction again?
14. What was the name of the novel she wrote then?
15. When does her novel, Home, come out?
16. What happens to Ruth and Lucille's mother in Housekeeping?
17. Who takes care of them then?
18. What does the book Gilead center on?
19. How old is Ames?
20. Who is he writing his book for?
A: 1. Housekeeping.
2. 1980.
3. More than twenty.
4. Nonfiction.
5. Mother Country: Britain.
6. Harper's and The New York Times Book Review
7. The Death of Adam: Essays on Modern Thought,
8. Charles Darwin and John Calvin.
9. Connie Bronson
10. "It's as if, in writing it, she broke through the ordinary human condition with all its dissatisfactions, and achieved a kind of transfiguration
11. The Paris Review.
12. 1986
13. 2004
14. Gilead.
15. This fall.
16. She commits suicide.
17. Their Aunt Sylvie.
18. John Ames.
19. 77.
20. His son.

Problem: Washington (CNN) -- A late evening meeting between President Barack Obama and the leaders of the House and Senate failed to reach agreement Wednesday on a spending plan to avert a government shutdown, but all the participants said progress was made and talks would continue.

If there is no deal by midnight Friday, when the current spending authorization measure expires, parts of the government will close down.

Obama called the 90-minute talks with House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, "constructive" and he said they narrowed and clarified the outstanding issues.

"I remain confident that if we're serious about getting something done, we should be able to complete a deal and get it passed and avert a shutdown," Obama said in brief remarks to reporters. "But it's going to require a sufficient sense of urgency from all parties involved" to prevent a shutdown that "could have real effects on everyday Americans."

Both Reid and Boehner told reporters in their own brief comments that the meeting made progress in narrowing their differences, and that their staffs would work through the night to try to reach further consensus.

"I have confidence we can get this done," said Reid, who criticized Boehner and Republicans earlier in the day for intransigence. "We're not there yet."

Boehner, standing next to Reid, said "we do have some honest differences," and he emphasized there was no agreement on either a specific figure for spending cuts for the rest of the current fiscal year or on policy issues that the Republicans want included in the measure, such as specifically prohibiting funding for abortions.
1. Was an agreement reached?
Answer:
1. failed to reach agreement