well, think i finally figured it out.
seems that when i would flash the kitchen, if it had Spb Pocket Plus, the themes would not work. Did a couple of 1.0.4 of Helmi to figure that out.
So, I did not cook SPB into the kitchen at all.
messed w/ the themes, put a couple on there and switched between them. all works good.
then installed newest Spb P+
then tried themes again.....all good
now happy
still not sure what the problem was.