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Chrysanthemum tea for Double Ninth

Double Ninth was yesterday, the ninth day of the ninth month. Nine is the most yang of numbers, so two of them together is a lot of yang, and the custom is to climb somewhere high and look after your elders. I took my father, who is 81 and insisted on carrying the thermos himself. At the top of the hill in the park we drank chrysanthemum tea: a small handful of dried flowers, five or six goji berries and one lump of yellow rock sugar, steeped in hot (not boiling) water. Watching the flowers open in the cup is half of it. My father says they look like old men waking up from a nap. He would know. We poured a little on the ground for my mother, who loved this festival, and walked down slowly. Water wins by yielding. So do knees.