Cheesecake Hill, 80126

"Piper Jaffray is adjusting its rating on shares of the Cheesecake Factory (NASDAQ: CAKE) to Neutral. It credits the company with being one of the industry's best-in-class operators and believes the company is in a much stronger position going into 2011.

"With no debt, a new revolver, and 6-9 new units expected for FY11, Piper is incrementally encouraged by the company's improved position. That said, it believes the bias towards the limited service and fine dining segments and their favorable strategic/demographic exposure vs. casual dining ultimately wins out....

"Piper raises CAKE's PT from $25 to $30."

It didn't hit me until about an hour ago. I'm supposed to write something today. Although I don't have time to write a daily post, my brain has almost frothed with potential subject matter this week. I know - major excitement, huh?!

I've nearly created all manner of fantastic, potential topics for today. Emphasis on the word "nearly." As expected, the week went its way through a treacherous to-do list and prep for a week of travel to company headquarters next week. Louisville, Kentucky - 40202. The Pink Palace. The Tower.

I always used to work at someone's headquarters. "Corporate." Since we moved to Colorado in 2002, I've been in "The Field." When "The Field" goes to "Corporate" in this instance, the preparatory instructions duly note that the dress code is different "there." We're advised that some of us may work in "Business Casual" environments. You know who you are. (Well, do you? I submit that some folks might not know.) You're coming to a Fortune 73 company, so you'd better act like it. I mean, dress like it. Dress in "Business Formal."

What in the world is "Business Formal?" My two-day orientation at "Corporate" at the beginning of my tenure in 2009 was filled with images of women in too-long skirts. Some of them teetered on heels so high, I could not even create a space between my thumb and forefinger to measure the distance. One of them hobbled to the ladies' room for a Noon teeth brushing appointment, and I thought she would soon be headed to the ER for a broken ankle instead.

What's formal about that?!

So, this matter is of some concern. Modest concern; but, concern, nonetheless. I won't be taking any seven-inch heels with me. You can all exhale now.

Of course, I have no intention of revealing my Business Formal packing list. Let's just say that it's heavy on black, leather, and metal objects. Sounds more like Business Torture, doesn't it?! (Yuck, yuck.) I promise, I'm leaving my whip at home.

No, the real topic for today's musing has nothing to do with clothing choices and everything to do with the health care industry. It necessarily flies directly in the face of recent government hand-wringing about dessert and the role dessert -- dare I add - chocolate dessert -- plays in our obesity epidemic and rising healthcare costs.

I could be in serious trouble for revealing to you that the best thing I made in 2010 was.................Triple Chocolate Cheesecake.

This confession likely marks the beginning of another potential tradition - you are probably already setting your watch and noting on your 2012 calendars that you can expect a post about "The Best Thing I Made in 2011" on the second Saturday of next year. Quite right. I could begin to schedule certain topics now, given my penchant for forward planning. It would eliminate all that messiness about searching for a subject, trying to be witty about it extemporaneously (I could be funny upfront), and set everyone's teeth on fire in anticipation.

I didn't start out to make this dessert for Thanksgiving - it was foisted upon me by a daughter who decided in 2010 (or sometime earlier when I wasn't paying attention) that she now likes cheesecake. From the Cheesecake Factory. Six or seven dollars a slice, I think. Sometimes, I open the refrigerator for morning orange juice and find about $3.72 worth in a doggy box. Before I jolt to reality, I sometimes ask myself if I'm supposed to eat it. No, it wasn't put there for me.

But, when queried about the dessert wish list (not with the intent to buck tradition, but to entertain new possibilities), I was not prepared for chocolate cheesecake.

Not because I don't know how to make it. I've made it with all manner of chocolate - bittersweet, semisweet, milk, "dark," (this label has created undue confusion in the world of cocoa bean labeling), "white" (all of you already know, there is no such thing as "white" chocolate, right?), and Godiva chocolate liqueur, etc., etc.

Along with pie crust and yeast bread, I had more than conquered cheesecake at sea level a couple of decades ago. Living at about 6200 feet above sea level now creates new horrors of baking that have yet to be chronicled on WFP, simply because I'm not sure the audience needs to hear about failure. I'm all about success.

So, although the internet likely harbors a trillion chocolate cheesecake recipes, I went to an old-fashioned paper file folder stuffed with recipes that have been triaged from magazines (yes, the kind you hold in your hands) over the years; but, not yet used.

Enter "Chocolate Bliss Cheesecake." Kraft Foods will be delighted to know that I still have this recipe, published in a full-page ad from a 2001 issue of Martha Stewart Living. You know this thing is old when you flip over the page and see an entry in a program guide for a Martha series that hasn't been on the air since, well, just after 2001. An entry entitled "Cooking with Rocco Dispirito" further ages the ad. And, frankly, probably should have rendered it useless. :) (I confess that I count one of his cookbooks among my collection. Mostly for the pictures :)

But, baking at altitude requires more than an adjustment of ingredients, ratios, baking times, baking equipment...truthfully, it's a long list. It demands a different way of thinking and a managing of expectations the likes of which I never thought I could absorb.

I now look for fewer ingredients. Fewer things to go wrong or be out of proportion.

I look for a smaller yield. Less cheesecake to throw down the garbage disposal, in the event of an aborted landing.

I look for less investment of time. Less time wasted on something headed for the garbage disposal equals more time for tasks that are not altitude-sensitive. Like laundry.

Yes, this recipe yields a nine-inch cheesecake, which seems like a lot. But, if you only make it when you have people around you to help eat it, you'll see it cuts down to size nicely.

Cheesecake also freezes well. We still have five slices of this one downstairs today. It won't stay there much longer, but we did have seven slices the day before Christmas. You get the idea...

One dastardly dilemma with cheesecake at altitude remains.

Crack. And, I do mean CRACK. (Not the drug. Duh!)

At sea level, we all demurely and slowly removed our cheesecake from the low-heat oven, resting it firmly on the countertop. We then used the thin, straight knife already waiting to take a twirl or two around the rim. This nifty technique dislodged the cake from the side of the springform pan before the thing even had time to realize it was out of the oven.

Nothing doing at altitude.

The very millisecond that cake comes out of the oven and hits the cooler air, along with the change in air pressure, it begins to tug and snatch itself with great velocity from the rim. It looks like the bottom of a dry desert bed before you've even traversed the 26 inches from the oven door to the counter.

Ah, you cheesecake bakers say. But, after it cools and you store it in the refrigerator for the requisite time, those cracks close up again. All is well.

I guess you don't understand what I'm trying to tell you. These cracks are deep, wide, and vast.

The only prescription is cosmetic surgery. Filler. I don't know, but I'm guessing that it's the culinary interpretation of collagen injections.

Otherwise known as Ganache.

I think the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is coming up my driveway about now. But, yes, you're getting the recipe/technique for that, too.

I'm not sure how it happens. But a warm pool of ganache, carefully poured on the cooled cheesecake (before the whole thing goes into the refrigerator) closes the gashes and makes your Baker's One Bowl Recipe into a thing of presentation perfection. When sliced, no evidence or history of cracks is visible; even to those of us who are paying attention.

A thing of beauty. A tri-level, pure chocolate creation. Restaurant quality. Yes, even when compared to the one traded on NASDAQ.

The best thing I made in 2010.

Chocolate Bliss Cheesecake

Prep: 30 minutes plus refrigerating

Bake: 1 Hour

18 Oreo Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, finely crushed (1-1/2 cups)

2 Tbsp. butter, melted

3 pkg. (8 oz. each) Philadelphia Cream Cheese, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp. vanilla (2 tsp. at altitude - you know who you are)

3 eggs

1 pkg. (8 squares) Baker's Semi-Sweet Baking Chocolate, melted; cooled slightly

Heat oven to 325 F. Mix crushed cookies and butter; press onto bottom of 9-inch springform pan. Bake 10 minutes.

Mix cream cheese, sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add eggs (one at a time at altitude), mixing on low speed just until blended. Blend in melted chocolate. Pour over crust.

Bake 55 to 60 minutes or until center is almost set. Run knife or metal spatula around rim of pan to loosen cake (HA! Do it at altitude anyway); cool before removing rim of pan.

Refrigerate four hours or overnight. Makes 12 servings.

Altitude Crack Repair Ganache

3/4 cup heavy whipping cream

6 oz. dark chocolate (bittersweet), chopped

1 Tbsp. sugar

Stir cream, 6 ounces chocolate and sugar in heavy medium saucepan over low heat until smooth. Cool slightly. Pour over center of cheesecake, spreading to within 1/2 inch of edge and filling any cracks (HA!). Chill until topping is set, about one hour. (Well, ignore the one hour. The whole thing is best when chilled overnight.)

Unknown Unknowns

"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."

William Jennings Bryan, American lawyer and politician (1860-1925)

"But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane In proving foresight may be vain; The best laid schemes 'o mice an men, Gang aft a-gley ; An lea'e us nought but grief an' pain; For promised joy."

Robert Burns, poem "To a Mouse," 1786.

Welcome back to When Pigs Fly! Hiatus lasted longer than I expected, but I should have known that joining the health care industry in March, 2009 would be something of a distraction. Understatement. I thought it would be so cool to be part of the "debate" at that time; however, watching my company's name and industry endure daily vilification within the national press, above the fold, soon lost its intrigue. No aspects of the matter will be examined, reviewed, dissected or otherwise construed here. It's not the right place, I'm not the right person.

Besides, the original charter of WPF was to give CRD a place to write something besides a business plan, new product proposition, or research analysis. For the brain exercise. The same reason my father still does crossword puzzles every day.

I note that only two posts were entered since I began this adventure with Humana. It would seem I didn't have the time (true), didn't have the inclination (true), and didn't have anything to say (maybe).

Like everything in my life, I had to make a choice about where to spend my time and talent. To opt for the laundry on Saturday instead of the blog. To sleep during the week after closing the laptop regularly at midnight instead of rising to fire the brain cells. To recognize that the continual firing of said brain cells on the job was sufficient mind massaging for anyone, including me, and acknowledging that no one was really out there waiting for word from me.

But, with a quirky combination of bang and whimper, 2010 has ended. It jolted me back to the idea that I could do something more abbreviated. That I could have the cake and eat it, too. That a compromise - perhaps a lowering of my own expectations is too harsh - could permit me to peacefully commingle my life with a blog thingy.

2010 was a year I had long anticipated. The planned lifestage events on the calendar came and went: Shannon graduated from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln on May 8, and Meredith graduated from Mountain Vista High School on May 20.

The unplanned events require much more than a paragraph - everything from "surviving" the first restructuring at Humana in response to "health care reform" that ultimately quadrupled my geographical assignment; to watching my 83-year-old father enter the hospital as a patient for the first time in his life. And, fight for that life. Through the Grace and Mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, he lived to tell that tale. And, not surprisingly, everyone is listening.

We begin each year that way. We have some things to do. We already know about them: birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, new jobs, new school terms. Sometimes we anticipate the birth of new life to our families, friends, and co-workers. Stuff like that.

We prepare. We have certainty. Our daily life choices - and the attendant consequences - are somewhat ordered about the expectation that these things will happen. According to the calendar. According to the plan.

But, what about the unplanned? The unseen? The unforeseen?

If we're honest, we have more of that each year than anything. The "what was I thinking" moments. The "how could I have been so stupid" thunderclaps. The "why do I keep doing that" whiplash. The "I am such a ditz" self-loathing.

We don't see everything coming. I have long contended that God doesn't let us see the future. As a whole, it would scare us into apoplexy; rivet us into stupor; cement our decision-making to the floor.

We weren't made to carry that burden.

What we are made to do is live each day by faith, taking everything as it comes. One thing after the other. Day, after day, after day.

Maybe I yet have nothing well-formed to say. The first day of a new year can do that to you. The day can feel heavy, mixed with an odd concoction of anticipation and fear. Fear about what those unplanned, unseen things in 2011 will be and whether everyone we love will come out on the other side.

I'm beginning the first day of the new year in Pasadena, California again. The only difference over time is that we finally wised-up and watch it on HGTV, without commercial interruption. The television does it no justice whatsoever. Having seen it live for so many years, I am both exceedingly spoiled and a parade snob. This regularity - honoring this tradition - is one of the ways I cope with uncertainty. Even that day a few years ago when the rain poured down on Pasadena like Armageddon and washed all the poppy seeds off the USC float and destroyed the hair AND make-up of the Song Girls wasn't enough to cancel the thing.

So, I count on the XXth Pasadena Tournament of Roses Parade to confirm that the calendar page turned again. Rain or shine. Mostly, shine. But, also rain. Buckets of rain, rivers of rain.

Oh, no. The Sierra Madre float broke down before the official parade starting line. Already being towed. I suppose all of you non-Californians are wondering how all those tow trucks just come out of nowhere when stuff breaks. Well, I'm not going to tell you. For the sake of the traditions, some things just should not be discussed....

But, that won't prevent me from making a few catty remarks. (Meow.)

We lived in Sierra Madre, but went to Arcadia High School. Seems like Arcadia has had a Princess on the Queen's float every year for three decades. I could be wrong. This year was no exception. Even with the programmed "diversity" of the court (sorry - that part is true), they still mostly look alike on parade day. Hair, make-up, crowns, matching dresses and creepy waves can do that. Sanitized and homogenized for our protection.

LOVED the teal dresses today. Probably my all-time favorite color. Probably because all us Dickersons look fabu in it. Something about that eastern European coloring of everyone except me; but, I have blue eyes, too - so, it works. LOVE teal. The perfect blend of God's two most perfect colors in nature - green and blue - an inspired hue.

But, these people standing on horses must go. I don't mean that in the "you go, girl" sense. I mean exit. Next left-hand turn off of Colorado Boulevard.

I mark the dates, mark the time. Honor the high days and holidays to the best of my ability. Never let my husband forget that he didn't have a stocking when we were first married by stringing an outrageous collection of them through the entire house. Remind my girls that the days they were born are only elipsed in my joy by the day I married their father.

Make the turkey stock at Thanksgiving. Plug in all the Christmas lights every night until New Years (and a few nights beyond, if necessary).

(Shout-out to Bruce Erley, colleague from Denver, and Up With People alum; who produced the parade opening segment today. Bruce, I want you to know that I actually set the alarm for 8:45 a.m. Mountain after too-little sleep, just to see Matt on top of the singer float. I owe you a phone call about the Denver Parade of Lights post-event analysis, Nielsen ratings, and demographic viewership results.)

Oops. No business stuff on When Pigs Fly.

Anyway, I don't know what I can do in weekly installments. But, I don't think I'm ready to commit to more than a weekly post, for whatever it might be worth to anyone. I'm not a paid professional, I'm not trying to change political opinions, and gifted Biblical scholars are already doing what I don't have a calling to do.

However, it seems that an often-overused verse would be in order here. On 1-1-11.

Naturally, Jeremith 29:11. "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Since I don't know, I'm grateful that He knows. I will continue to try to make the best possible daily choices so that I am fit for whatever He knows.

Almost Famous

These things write themselves now....

Ides of Snow Day

"It is getting dark and time he drew to a house,
But the blizzard blinds him to any house ahead.
The storm gets down his neck in any icy souse
That sucks his breath like a wicked cat in bed. "

Robert Frost (1874–1963), U.S. poet. “Willful Homing.”



There's something strange and wonderful about this 27th day of March.

It's strange, and I'm wonderful. (Yuck, yuck.)

After barely a flake of snow since Christmas and temperatures parked between 50 and 75 for weeks on end, the innocent Denverites had been lulled into giddy submission. No need to keep the freezer stocked with just-in-case-we're-snowed-in food. No need to count the potatoes, time the milk deliveries, or tune the snow blower. We were going to slide right into Easter without Winter.

Our household should have known better. Nothing brings on a good blizzard faster than Spring Break on the calendar. Shannon was home for it last week. No snow. That could mean only one thing.

We would have snow this week. Major league snow. Meredith is on Spring Break. And, it just wouldn't be like the previous six Spring Breaks in Highlands Ranch without the sight of deciduous trees in full flower, bowed by heavy, wet snow. That seemed to circulate repeatedly from the sky like a lake effect, without the lake.

I should be in the car, traveling to my new employer in the Denver Tech Center. But, we were sent home midday yesterday. The day started innocently enough. The signs and warnings were firing from every cylinder. But, I was in denial. Until an office President born and raised in Minnesota declared at 10 a.m. that he was going to close the office. That sounded serious. I thought he was joking.

It was. Serious. Not a joke. We forged ahead with our previously scheduled meeting. Within the space of the last half hour, the street conditions went from plausible to barely discernible. We could see it out the panels of glass in his 14th floor office. Still, I thought I would zip over to the grocery store, pick up a half dozen essentials, run back to the car, and speed to the house before conditions progressed to life-threatening.

Wrong again. Just the walk from the front door of our office tower to my car in the open parking lot -- couldn't have been more than 25 yards -- was a real-life comedy. I was coated in snow from head to toe while the inside of the car attained it's own fresh-powder dusting in the span of opening and closing the door.

Sideways snow. Horizontal, wind-whipped, cornflake-sized pieces of danger flew around with no strategic plan.

Ninety minutes, 1/8 of a tank of gas, and the view of three pile-up incidents later, I turned the final right from the neighborhood entrance for the house after the 12-mile journey. I knew what came next would present the greatest challenge of all.

Getting into the garage without hitting the dog.

I hit the button early. Right on cue, the door rolled up. She sprung from her house in the garage to see who was coming home. Meredith had brought her inside. Rightfully so.

In my little car, I must make the turn into and up the driveway in one, uninterrupted motion if I expect to land inside the garage. When there is already about a foot of snow on the driveway. I need for the dog to decide if she's going to venture out for a bathroom break or run back in horror to her house when she reaches the lip of the snow bank. I need for her to be clear of purpose, single-minded in her focus, and cognizant of the consequences should she elect to stand frozen in awe of the white wonder before her.

Nothing doing.

At the critical go/no-go moment in my trajectory, she decided not to decide. She was right in my line of sight when she finally decided that it was too cold, too wet, too snowy, and just too downright weird to do anything but stand right in my path with a look of "aren't you supposed to be at work" on her sweet doggy face.

I slammed on the brakes. That's when I know that one of only two things will happen next.

I'm going to slide down the hill into the street and take as many runs up the driveway as I need to get that car into it's side of the garage. Or, I'm going to leave the car in the driveway, parked at just the precise angle that no other car in the family will be able to get into the garage either. And, step into that foot of snow without boots, trudge through it with my three black bags in hand, leave all the wet clothes in the laundry room for another day. All while giving the dog that is already back in the doghouse a stern lecture about how she is really in the doghouse This Time.

It took seven runs up the hill. I was in the garage. I was in at the precise angle necessary to give the other car, behind me by mere minutes, the precise angle it needed for the driver to emerge without his door hitting my door.

All was right with the world. Sort of. The dog was in her house. Meredith was in her house. Mark was going to be in his house, God willing, in a few minutes.

On to the next question. Did we have internet?

Dueling laptops would be fired up, next to a fired-up fireplace.

Today, it's more of the same. The clock says I should be at the office by now.

I'm coming, I'm coming. The switchboard message said we're closed. But, we're not closed. We're just "working from home."

Easier commute this morning. Going to walk downstairs now and take my seat at the laptop table. With its 180 degree view of the Spring Blizzard of 2009.

Plain Vanilla

"You are very sweet and mellow. You are easy going and easy to like. You are drawn to those stronger personalities. You get along with powerful people.

"You are like a cupcake because you appeal to almost every type of person. You are friendly and accepting. You bring out other people's best qualities. "

CRD Results from "What Flavor Cupcake are You?" test on blogthings.com

White with fair skin. Yep, that's me all right. But, plain vanilla?

I don't think so, girlfriend.

Do the test lie? Well, I don't know how much of a test it is. But, I recently latched onto http://www.blogthings.com/ just in case my upcoming work responsibilities keep me from waxing eloquent here on When Pigs Fly. I thought it would give folks something to do while I'm doing whatever I'm doing.

But, this cupcake thing has me a bit concerned. Here I thought I was chocolate to the core; and, now, I find out I'm probably the flavor that is left behind in the box after everyone fights over the chocolate cupcake with chocolate frosting and chocolate sprinkles.

I wouldn't have felt so bad if I had tested out as Red Velvet. Everybody's new favorite cupcake. New favorite friend. A bright red cake with a hint of light chocolate flavor and a cream cheese (cheesecake, anyone??) topper for good measure.

But, no. I'm vanilla. I'm thinking about retaking the test, but which answer would I change? Alas, I'm too honest -- too vanilla -- to cheat.

Not one to take this slight without a fight, I had to research the possible reasons why being vanilla could be something to which I might actually aspire. Let me count the ways.

1. Vanilla is derived from orchids.

YUM! I love orchids, especially white Phalaenopsis. Also known as butterfly orchids. I carried them at my wedding, my husband bought me a gorgeous print of them crafted on sculpted paper for an anniversary gift one year, I used to always have one in the bathroom in California, I've killed two of them since moving to Denver, and I broke my personal rule about no fake flowers when I finally relented on a silk version that won't mind the dry Colorado climate.

OK, so the butterfly orchid is NOT the source of vanilla. I can dream, can't I?!?

2. Vanilla is the second-most expensive spice after saffron.

Vanilla is labor-intensive. Is that the same as high-maintenance? I don't know, but I like being rare and expensive.

3. The flavor is "pure, spicy, and delicate" with a complex "floral aroma."

That doesn't sound common to me. OK, I'm good with "complex."

4. Old medical literature stated that vanilla was an aphrodisiac. No comment. When Pigs Fly is rated "G" for General audiences.

5. That same old literature said that vanilla was also a remedy for fevers.

Well, that can't be right. Everybody knows that the only prescription for fever is More Cowbell.

Mint Condition

" Subtraction? Oh, yes, ma'am, I can explain it. Subtraction is the awful feeling that you know less today than you did yesterday."

Patricia "Peppermint Patty" Reichart, November 13, 1978

I know, I know. I already did a note about a mint cupcake. It had a big swirl of creme de menthe Italian Meringue buttercream and an Andes mint on the top of a rich, complex chocolate cake.

This one is different. This one is more accessible. The only difference between this one and a plain, old chocolate cupcake with vanilla buttercream frosting is a tablespoon of peppermint extract and a bag of York Peppermint Patties.

This cupcake is more of a recession cupcake. Although, at 14o calories per peppermint patty, the addition of the York significantly ratchets up the total calorie consumption to a genuinely indulgent level.

We shall not care. We shall eat cake. And, we shall like it.

I don't have a recipe for you. But, you can tell by the picture that you don't need one. Unwrap half the number of peppermint patties as you expect to have cupcakes. Cut them in half. Put one half in the bottom of each cupcake cup. Cover the mint with your chocolate cupcake batter and bake.

When you are ready to top your cupcakes, make your regular vanilla buttercream frosting and add a tablespoon of real peppermint extract. Less if you don't want that frosty, Rocky Mountain crisp air afterbite. But enough to know that you put some in. After you top the chocolate cupcakes with the peppermint frosting, unwrap half the number of peppermint patties as you have cupcakes. Again. Cut them in half. Top each frosted cupcake with one half of a peppermint patty.

Eat. Inhale. Relax. Repeat.

Thin Air

"Trust is not a matter of technique, but of character. We are trusted because of our way of being, not because of our polished exteriors or our expertly crafted communications."

Marsha Sinetar, educator and author

In about eight hours, it would have been an entire week since I began holding my breath. Not that I had a good reason to do so, but I did it anyway. In the spirit of "it's-not-over-til-it's-over."

At 3 p.m. Mountain Time last Friday, I finished a phone call in the "C" terminal of Denver International Airport with the internal recruiter of the company I'm going to work for beginning March 15. He had expected to reach me before I got on the plane in Salt Lake City, but got my voicemail instead. I was already in the air. Trying not to worry about whether I would get a phone call on Friday or wait through the weekend to learn the results.

Because the company is so very large and conducts a business that involves the government sometimes, a chain-of-custody drug test is required.

That's not why I was holding my breath. The strongest pill I took this week was an Advil. In that way, this week was like any other.

But, the other requirement to confirm employment is a background check. Not a phone-your-reference-list background check. A systematic confirmation of everything I submitted in an electronic application form. And, maybe, stuff I didn't submit. By the largest database organization in the world. The kind that not only knows your mother's mother's maiden name, but also how much cash she kept in the cookie jar.

Not that I should have been holding my breath about that either. I didn't lie about anything on the application, and the truth I told didn't contain anything that would disqualify me.

But, just the idea that two hurdles must be crossed before I could officially consider myself an employee caused me to deeply inhale. And, hold it until 7 a.m. today, when I got a phone call that casually revealed that the background check was "confirmed."

That whooshing sound. That's me exhaling. I am officially employed.

Well, pending the drug test results.

Like I said, I am officially employed.