Obviously this it a cricket - not the plain black kind I used to see Back East, but some kind of Arizona cricket with brownish stripeyness. Here's another shot:
I've looked up "Arizona Cricket" on Google, but the results are dominated by two groups that play the British sport, the wireless company and an arena named for the wireless company. There are pages about species of crickets, but mostly they're about a newly-discovered genus of cave cricket, which this isn't. But it is a cricket of some kind. Trust me.
I have a policy about bugs in the house, which for most species is that they give up their right to live if they enter the house. I have been known to rescue the occasional beetle, and I used to tolerate a tiny black variant of the ladybug until we came to suspect they were a different stage of the species of bugs that ate their way through a bunch of irreplaceable coats, hats, wizard costume and Toros baseball jerseys. But the main exception to the policy is crickets. I have never killed a cricket, and hardly ever even removed one from the house. This isn't just because of Chinese tradition and the superstition that they bring good luck. The main thing is that they eat other bugs - well, I think they do. And I find them kinda cute!
Karen
