Missing Panels/Pods in FM9?

New user of FrameMaker 9 (but experienced in past versions). Cannot select any panels/pods from menus, so I can't use any of their functions. The menu items are there, but clicking them results in nothing happening. The selected panel or pod does not appear on the screen. In fact, sometimes an errant keystroke will instead appear in my Frame doc (if cursor is in a text frame). When no panels/pods are visible, I can't change inset properties, can't add a marker, f catalog won't appear, etc. Sometimes a restart will reveal that the item I tried to show is now open; more often it doesn't. Deadline is upon me....

Secondary issue: Don't know if it's related, but also noticed that documents in a sized window open as a blank background (not bank document); I have to enlarge their windows to full screen in order to actually see the document, almost like a delay in opening except it never appears if I don't modify its window.

Using Windows 7 via Parallels (in Mac OSX 10.6.6).

Help is appreciated....

Thank you,

Karen