I opened my web.config and in the area where all of the fck settings are, I changed this: CSSDefaultMode="dynamic" to CSSDefaultMode="static".
I think that is what Sebastian was suggesting through the fck editor admin, but I had tried that already and wasn't able to "defeat" the black background on my site.
Changing the CSSDefaultMode to static in the web.config finally did the trick. It seems to have not had any other negative consequence on my skin or elsewhere.
Just because I tend to be impulsive... BE SURE TO MAKE A BACKUP OF YOUR WEB.CONFIG!! :)
IdahoGrrl