Sometimes people like to write things about florist’s shops. Here are two things you need to know, the most egregiously wrong things.
1. It makes no fucking sense to sketch out a bouquet before you make it. Every individual flower is different in a way that cannot really be adjusted the way other building materials can be adjusted, and each individual bouquet is unique. Just put the fucking flowers together.
2. No one — in months and months of working at the flower shop — has ever cared what the flower/color of the flower means. No one’s ever asked. It’s just not something people tend to care about outside of fiction and it’s certainly not something most florists know. You know what florists know? What looks good and is thematically appropriate.
Here’s an actual list of the symbology of flowers, as professionals use it:
Yellow – for friends, hospitals Pink – girls, girlfriends, babies, bridesmaids Red – love Purple – queens White – marriage and death (DO NOT SEND TO HOSPITALS) Pink and purple – ur mum Red, orange, and yellow – ur mum if she’s stylish Red, yellow, blue – dudes and small children Blue and white – rare, probably a wedding Red and white – love for fancy bitches
Here are what the flowers actually mean to a florist:
The Fill It Out flowers:
Carnations – fuck u these are meaningless filler-flowers, not even your administrative assistant likes them, show some creativity Alstroemeria – by and large very similar to carnations but I like them better Tea roses – cute and lil and come several to a stalk, a classy filler flower Moluccella laevis – filler flower but CHOICE Delphinium – not as interesting as moluccella but purple so okay I guess Blue thistle – FUCK YEAH, some fucking textural variety at last! you’re getting this for a dude, aren’t you? Chrysanthemums – barely better than carnations but better is still better Gladiolus – ooh, risky business, someone understands the use of the Y-axis, very good
Focal points:
Long-stem roses – yeah whatever Lilies – LBD, looks good with everything, get used as often as possible Hydrangeas – thirsty fuckers, divas of the flower world and rightly so, treat them right and they make you look good Gerbera daisies – the rose’s hippie cousin, hotter but no one admits it Peonies – CHA-CHING, everybody’s absolute favorite but you need guap Orchids – if this isn’t for a wedding you’re probably trying too hard but they’re expensive so keep ordering them
You know what matters? THE CUSTOMER’S BUDGET. THAT’S TELLING.
-$20 – if you’re not under 12, fuck off, get your sugar something else $30 – good for bouquets but an arrangement will be lame $40 – getting there, there’s something that can be done with that. you can get some gerbs or roses with that and not have them look stupidly solo. $50 to $70 – tolerable $80 – FINALLY. It sounds elitist but this really is the basic amount of money you should expect to spend on an arrangement that matters. That’s your Mother’s Day arrangement. You’re probably not going to spend $80 on a bouquet. $90 to $130 – THE GOOD SHIT, you’re likely to get some orchids $130+ – Weddings and death. This amount of money gets you a memorial arrangement or a handmade bridal bouquet. Don’t spend this on a Mother’s Day or a Babe I Love You arrangement, buy whosits a massage or something.
Miscellaneous:
Everything needs greening and if you don’t think that you’re an idiot.
As a new employee, when you start making arrangements, you can’t see the mistakes you’re making because you’re brand new and you’re learning an art form from the ground up.
With a few exceptions customers don’t have a clear plan in mind. They want you to develop the bouquet for them. They want something that will delight their little sweetbread but you’re lucky if they know that person’s favorite color, let alone flower.
Flower shops don’t typically have every kind of flower in every kind of color. Customers generally aren’t assed about that. Most people don’t care about the precise shade of the rose or having daffodils in July, because they’re not boning up on flower language before they buy. That would imply that they’ve got a clear bouquet in mind and, again, they don’t.
Being a florist is essentially a lot like what I imagine being a mortician is about. You’re basically keeping dead things looking good for as long as possible. You keep the product in the fridge so it doesn’t rot and look horrible by the time the family gets a whack at it, and in the meanwhile you put it in a nice container.
Anyway that’s flowers.
this is magnificent and I love hearing about ppl job feilds
here’s a hot take: giftwrap is dumb, 95% of the time you can just hand someone the thing and accomplish the same task. Society has conditioned us to love wrapping shit up for no reason, probably by gift wrap industry people.
Counterpoint: monkey instinct says uncovering secret bounty from colorful shell good as fuck
“A medical professor who has tracked the cost of insulin over the
years says that a one-month supply of a popular version that cost $45
wholesale in 2001 cost $1,447 14 years later, an increase of almost
3,000%. That’s the wholesale price, not the retail price that an
uninsured patient would pay.“
Yeah, that’s messed up.
Wow, it’s really rare I see something cross my dash that’s actually directly tied to my life on a personal level, but yea, I’m Diabetic Type 1 and this is a problem.
I’ve been off insurance for the last three or so years and have been working around through channel I can to continue to obtain insulin and supplies for my insulin pump (of which is currently a problem, fun) for free or at reduced costs.
The Lilly Cares program is one I heavily endorse if your insulin is a Lilly product. They’ve been incredibly helpful to me.
Please spread the word on this. There are a lot of young Diabetics like myself that do not have a support system, do not have insurance, and do not have jobs. Insulin is literally a life-sustaining medication for T1 Diabetics. Please do not just ignore this.
T1 diagnosed over 20 years ago here. Back when I was out of work in 2009 I contacted Lilly Cares and I swear I would not be alive if not for that program. T1s need insulin to live. Daily. Our bodies do not produce the hormone because our immune systems backfired and killed our pancreas’ islet cells.
These days one bottle of insulin costs me approx $600 (before insurance) and lasts 2-3 weeks, tops. Less than ten years ago the cost was closer to $200/bottle. The insulin manufacturers keep “tweaking” insulins like Humalog so the patents can be extended(*), so we don’t even have access to a generic option.
The price gouging on insulin in this country is cruel and damn disgusting.
Please, please boost this info. It WILL save lives.
(*) a fact that even my endocrinologist has confirmed!
Lilly Cares saved my husband’s life when he had no prescription drug coverage. Please, please utilize this program if you can. It’s wonderful.
the line between not going out as an act of self-care and not going out as a symptom of depression is but a gossamer thread
how i tell the difference: i ask myself if i would like to be out by myself in the park, reading in the shade. if yes, then declining an invitation to be around people or handing off an errand run to someone else is self-care, because it’s a stressful activity i’m avoiding. i’m not self-isolating.
if reading under a tree doesn’t sound good, it’s anhedonia, and i need to make myself get up and move around to encourage my body to step up brain chemical production. so i make myself go for a short walk, and after about two blocks i’m usually feeling a lot less meh. i mean, not ‘all better’ or anything, but i no longer want to curl up like an ammonite and fossilize.
They are affordable too, especially at Walmart, Target and if anyone has one left in their town, Kmart.
Wow!!!!
A DIY THAT ISNT USELESS YES
Haven’t tried the freezer one, but I can vouch that the sliding door, spice and shoe racks ones totally work.
a lifehack that actually make a sense
Totes did the sliding door one, not so much to keep people out but to keep in the toddler, who had previously expertly decoded how to unlock both locks on the door. So, tension rod at the top of the door, and voila. Toddler proof.
I keep a spare sturdy cardboard box/milk crate in the trunk to use either as a space-filler to keep grocery bags from spilling or to contain particularly unruly cargo like plants and unbagged six-packs.
See, the problem with people who aren’t in wheelchairs writing about and/or drawing people who are in (manual) wheelchairs is that the people who aren’t in wheelchairs tend to think that there’s only like four movements that you do in a wheelchair. You can either push forward, push backwards, turn left, or turn right. And the characters do it all while sitting up straight or bending forward so that their noses touch their knees.
But the amount of motions that I go through on a daily basis are actually amazing. And the body language…you could write an entire book on the body language of someone in a wheelchair.
Like right now, I’m more relaxed, so I’m slouching slightly. I’ve got my right foot on its footrest and the left foot on the ground. Every so often, as I stop to think of something to say, I’ll push with my left foot to rock the chair slightly.
But usually, I sit mostly upright with my upper-half slightly leaned forward. When I’m wheeling across the campus, especially if I have somewhere that I need to be, I’ll lean and shift my weight in whichever direction it is that I’m going. It helps make the wheelchair glide that much more smoothly. How far/dramatically I lean depends on how fast I’m going, the terrain, if there’s a turn, etc.
Plus people who don’t use wheelchairs don’t understand the relationship between grabbing the wheels, pushing, and the chair moving. Like I’ve seen things written or have seen people try to use a chair where the character/that person grabs the wheel every single second and never lets go to save their lives. Which isn’t right. The key is to do long, strong, pushes that allow you to move several feet before repeating. I can usually get about ten feet in before I have to push again. It’s kind of like riding a scooter. You don’t always need to push. You push, then ride, then push, then ride, etc.
And because of this, despite what many people think, people in wheelchairs can actually multitask. I’ve carried Starbucks drinks across the campus without spilling a single drop. Because it’s possible to wheel one-handed (despite what most people think), especially when you shift your weight. And if I need to alternate between pushing both wheels, I’ll just swap hands during the ‘glide’ time.
I’ve also noticed that people who don’t use wheelchairs, for some reason, have no idea how to turn a wheelchair. It’s the funniest thing. Like I see it written or, again, have seen people ‘try’ a wheelchair where they’re reaching across their bodies to try to grab one wheel and push or they try to push both wheels at the same time and don’t understand. (For the record, you pull back a wheel and push a wheel. The direction that you’re going is the side that you pull back.)
Back to body language. Again, no idea why most people think that we always sit upright and nothing else. Maybe when I’m in meetings or other formal settings, but most of the time, I do slightly slouch/lean. As for the hands…A lot of writers put the wheelchair user’s hands on the armrests but the truth is, most armrests sit too far back to actually put your hands on. There are times when I’ll put my elbows on the edges of the armrests and will put my hands between my legs. Note: Not on my lap. That’s another thing that writers do but putting your hands in your lap is actually not a natural thing to do when you’re in a wheelchair, due to the angle that you’re sitting and the armrests. Most of the time, I’ll just sort of let my arms loosely fall on either side of the chair, so that my hands are next to my wheels but not grabbing them. That’s another form of body language. I’ve talked to a few people who have done it and I do it myself. If I’m ever anxious or in a situation where I want to leave for one reason or another, I will usually grip my handrims – one hand near the front , one hand near the back. And if I’m really nervous, you’ll find me leaning further and further into the chair, running my hands along the handrims.
Also, on a related subject – a character’s legs should usually be at 90 degree angles, the cushion should come to about their knees, and the armrests should come to about their elbows. You can always tell that an actor is not a wheelchair user when their wheelchair isn’t designed to their dimensions. (Their knees are usually inches away from the seats and are up at an angle, the armrests are too high, etc.) Plus they don’t know how to drive the chair.
Let’s see, what else? Only certain bags can go on the back of the chair without scraping against the wheels, so, no, your teenagers in wheelchairs can’t put their big, stylish, purses on the back. We don’t always use gloves since most gloves actually aren’t that helpful (as stated above, wheeling is a very fluid motion and gloves tend to constrict movements). Height differences are always a thing to remember. If you’re going for the “oh no, my wheelchair is broken” trope, nobody really has ‘flat’ tires anymore thanks to the new material for the wheels but it is possible to have things break off. We use the environment a lot. I always push off of walls or grab onto corners or kick off of the floor etc. Wheelchair parkour should really become a thing.
This is all of the physical things to think about. I could write a thesis on the emotional treatment of your characters with disabilities. But for now, I think that I’ll stop here. For my followers in wheelchairs, is there anything that I left out?
Also why isn’t wheelchair parkour a thing? Somebody make wheelchair parkour a thing.
This is all REALLY GOOD and I wish something like this would be in more art guidebooks and classes.
One thing I’d add is that some of the posture stuff here is specific to wheelchair users who have the right chair; a lot of people (hi, past me) have to use chairs that aren’t at all the correct size, and that’s going to change posture, ease of use, etc. That’s such a broad variable that it’s probably useless to try and cover here, but it’s something to be aware of and research if it seems relevant to a character.
and of course, what should be obvious but for some reason the mainstream is unable to grasp it: not all wheelchair users are paralyzed. some are physically completely capable of walking, it’s just painful, or unsafe because of vertigo, or exacerbates a nerve injury, or etc.
i just really need to see someone on tv somewhere at some point stand up from a wheelchair and have it not be an AHA moment that they’re faking
I’m working towards my ASL Interpreters Certificate in Texas, and so naturally I had the exact same question for my teachers. They way that my teachers (all Deaf) tend to sign “y’all” is with a ‘Y’ handsign facing the signer’s chest, then pulling it around like you’re signing “everybody” or “all you people” but with an ‘L’ hand instead of a general pointing hand.
That’s the technical kind of way. Most of the time though I’ll see people skip the ‘Y’ hand and go straight to just using a loose “L” hand to gesture outwards.
Kimchi and Justice 