just a follow-up, and a little praise where praise is due ...
I shutdown my MacBookPro the only way possible at the time [by holding the power button down]. I restarted my machine and launched parallels from the boot camp partition. This time, the initialization occurred relatively quickly [within 30 seconds]. At that point, I had control of the guest OS cursor, and was off and running.
Part of my iniial confusion was caused by what I feel are 2 conflicting messages during the initial launch. Within the guest OS window is a message which states [something to the effect of] 'do not perform any system operations during initialization'. Simultaneously, there was a message [located at the bottom left of the guest OS window] which tells the user to click within the guest OS window. On my first attempt, I did wait a bit [I don't know how long] before clicking in the window, but then succumbed to the conflicting message at the bottom. Perhaps the guest hadn't initialized, and I interfered with the process ... I don't know ... but I found the 2 messages contradictory and confusing.
On another note, today, I received a call from Dan, a Parallels Solutions Manager, who was checking in to see what was happening. I've seen many a disparaging word concerning Parallels support, and I want to give credit where warranted. Within 24 hours, I was contacted by a Parallels representative ... and I've yet to purchase the product ... still in my first day of my evaluation period. Thus far, my experience with Parallels support has been exemplary.
thanks!