Numbers help, how do I back out after changing color of a cell?

Ok, so when using numbers on the mac, I seem to run into a bit of a problem.
At times, I need to change the colors of cells. Say I have a5 and I want that cell to be red. I go to a5, press command shift c to open the color pallet, type red on the search field, go to the table of results, insure red is selected, and press on pick color, so that it now reads, pick color selected. Here's where my problem is, after pressing on close to close the pallet... I cannot do anything. I.e, say I want to enter a comment? pressing command shift k... does nothing, its as if I was still stuck in the color pallet despite closing it. The only way i've found to revert it back to normal and have the commands work again is to do a mouse click vo shift space. Then, if I press command shift k or any other command, things will work as normal, but as you can guess... This method is inefficient, slow, and tedious, and it’s driving me up the provervial wall. Is there any way to fix it? Is there anything i'm missing? Also, is th there any shortcuts to say mark the cell with x color without having to open the color pallet, searching for the color then pressing pick color? Any help would be appreciated. Thing i've tried after pressing the pick color button and this reads pick color selected, if I press escape twice, this puts me back into the table and commands work as normal but, if I escape after the, pick color selected is pressed and it reads as pick color selected, if I escape, it'll revert back to just, pick color, and i'm unsure if i the cell is still marked in red, per the example above.