title: How can I tell when a CSS background image has loaded? Is an event fired?
body: <p>I have a sidebar widget that has an image background.</p>
  
  <p>Over this is a search input form. I don't want the input to show before the image has loaded.</p>
  
  <p>Is there a way to attach an <code>load</code> event handler to CSS background images like normal img elements/objects?  </p>
  
  <p>I know this could be done on a normal image, but I'd like to keep it as a CSS background because the image is part of a sprite. I am using jQuery, so solutions using jQuery or plain DOM JS are equally good.</p>