Monday morning I awoke at 7 a.m. to chanting flowing through the window from the mountain in the back of my house. But something was strange -- the voice was not quite right. It wasn't the familiar deep voice of the priest, nor the younger voice of the priest's son. It was scratchy. Perhaps the locusts were practicing a new tune, I thought as I rolled over to go back to sleep.

Then I remembered. My neighbor Kazuko had told me that Monday was the ceremony for the mountain god. As the scratchy voice was joined with a chorus of more familiar neighborly voices, I jumped out of bed and ran to the ceremony. Still fighting off sleep, I was welcomed with a small bowl of sake. That's one hell of a way to wake up in the morning -- an alcoholic alarm clock. It worked, anyway.

Although I had missed the ceremony, I still went up and said a prayer to the mountain god at his designated shrine in the side of the mountain and left a 1,000 yen note between the dead fish and the "kagami mochi" laid out in front. As it would be bad form to leave exposed money as an offering, I put my bill into one of those fancy envelopes like the Japanese do, which is nice because it makes it look like there must be much more than just 1,000 yen inside. I've always thought this was a strange tradition, though. After all, what is the mountain god going to do with the money?