so of course I got stuck watching ER afterwards. GOOD episode.
And got an email from the registrar about the chorale domain name...it's transferred! I contacted the new host asking if they now need to do anything to make it point to the right location. What a struggle this has been. Now I will need to get two more domain names out from under the old host, and may need to go to the registrar again for those. At least now I know there's hope.