The meat tonight is fresh. I mean, REALLY fresh

This experience is sure to make the RCNY Hall of Fame for me.

So it seems strange things happen to me when I'm in and around Washington Square Park, especially when I am with Al & An. My prior strange Wash Sq Pk w/ Al & An experience was meeting Leatherface, who later was found dead hanging from a post in full S&M gear.

So this time, we were coming out of Blue Hill, a restaurant on Washington Place known for serving organic food from the Hudson Valley, our bellies full of Berkshire Pork and bread pudding and wine and chicken and other foods that you pat yourself on the back for eating because they are organic, even though you're not entirely sure what that entails. Al went back into the restaurant to get a gift certificate, while An and I waited out front. I noticed a minivan parked on the street that had nobody in it, but its side door was open halfway. I was a bit concerned that some poor guy's car had been broken into, though there were no visible signs of forced entry.

I peered into the van from a few feet away to see if I could tell whether it had in fact been broken into. I noticed a couple things; some dry cleaning hanging behind the back seat; a Bed, Bath & Beyond plastic bag on the floor, and something big strewn across a black plastic bag on the back seat, like maybe a big crumpled blanket or sweater. I peered in the darkness of the van a couple of times, while chatting with An as we waited for Al, who took a while to get his certificate. But on maybe my third peer-in, I noticed the light bouncing off something shiny and black on the blanket.

Now, I am not one who screams aloud unless I am with someone else who screams first, but if I were one who screamed aloud, I surely would have. I had that sudden feeling in the pit of your stomach that you get when something scares the bejeezus out of you. The glistening black thing was an eyeball on the "blanket" strewn across the back seat, which was not in fact a blanket at all, but appeared to be a dead baby deer. Initially I thought it was a dead dog, but the legs were too spindly and the snout was longer, like a horse's. I could see it's glassy eye staring up at me, and I felt like that guy in the Godfather who finds the bloody horse's head in his bed.

An and I freaked out and tried to think of where this deer could possibly have come from. An noticed that the car had a NYC parks department sticker. But where on earth would you find a dead deer in NYC? I highly doubt deer from Jersey or upstate would be able to accidentally cross highways and bridges and toll roads to wander into Central Park. And why was the door open? To keep the car fresh from the smell of a rotting animal corpse? Or was it a sign for car thieves to keep away (as in, you try to jack this car, you end up dead, like this deer)? I immediate concocted a crazy revenge scenario: Some parks dept. bureaucrat with a gambling problem who owed money to a loan shark was dining at Blue Hill, and the loan shark's thugs put the dead deer in his soccer-mom minivan as a warning.

At any rate, the other strange thing was just how nonchalantly the deer was strewn across the back seat, decidedly NOT placed INSIDE the plastic bag it was lying on. Maybe the parks employee decided it was OK to leave the car door open, because why on earth would a dead deer in a car freak people out? Al wondered what the driver's to-do list for the day looked like: 1) Pick up dry cleaning. 2) Get duvet cover at Bed, Bath & Beyond. 3) Pick up dead deer. 4) Make reservations for Blue Hill--must hurry to get good parking!

Anyway, the other curious thing was that on Blue Hill's tasting menu that night--which was being strongly recommended by our waitress--was VENISON. Coincidence???? I think not.