Looking to laze away summer's hazy days

"Summer afternoon-summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language," quipped US novelist Henry James. Celebrations were therefore intended, implicitly perhaps, to gather all the villagers for feasting and frivolity, with the thinking being that the passions of the youth might be productively channeled into procreation, and if things worked out among the willing celebrants, around nine months later, the results of partners' labor would lead to labor pains and, voila! The dictionary defines cabin fever as "extreme irritability and restlessness from living in isolation or a confined indoor area for a prolonged time". Li Bai, aka China's Shakespeare, Shelley and Wordsworth wrapped up in one wordsmith, wrote in A Summer Day in the Mountains:"Too lazy to wave my fan of white plumes, Rather, go naked, underneath the greenwood trees." We can all experience the poet's carefree devil-may-care attitude to the freedom and opportunity of an early summer day, though I wouldn't recommend his wardrobe choices given the particulars of modern social norms.