Not sending - Incorrect time - Can't modify time - no table phplist_admin

Trying different things to see why this is not working. The "send message" page has this text:

Click send messages to send all messages in the message queue with send dates and times that occur before or at the current time. Messages with send dates and times that occur in the future will not be sent.

Message composed at 8:09am (local time)
Server time (on the west coast) is 6:09am.
Mass mailer has set the send time for the message at 12:09pm (why 4 hrs in the future?)
To send message now, I alter the send time to 12:09am
When I view the queued message, the send time has been adjusted back to 12:09pm

Tried to send it again after 12:09pm local time. No dice. Messages queued several days ago are still shown as "submitted", not "sent", even after clicking "send messages" again.

Had this error in watchdog: Table dbname.prefix_phplist_admin' doesn't exist

I'm mystified why, if MM needs this file, it's not created by engines/phplist/phplist.mysql (latest MM version for 4.6)? Also, why this missing table hasn't been noticed before? I pulled the query out of PHPList 2.9.4 and created this table, but it's still not sending.

Weird too, when trying to access http://example.com/?q=admin/massmailer/queue&confirm=1, I don't get a confirm message, it shows the default front page without .css formatting (why is it looking for the .css files in massmailer/engines/phplist/admin/).

I sort of have to get this working before a board meeting on the 18th. Or can anyone suggest a different mailing list module? If I try installing a standalone version of PHPList, can I integrate it later?

Thx,
D. Lynn