"Applications Places Systems" menu area stealing focus

[Willie Walker]

Hi All:

When I press Ctrl+Alt+Tab to give focus to the top panel, I've found
that the "Applications Places Systems" menu area at the top left of the
display happily grabs keyboard focus.  

The problem is that once I've done Ctrl+Alt+Tab and then get into this
menu area via keyboard traversal, I often cannot seem to get keyboard
focus out of this area using the keyboard alone.  I've tried Ctrl+Alt
+Tab again, Escape, arrowing around, starting a new app, etc.   I find
myself needing to click the mouse somewhere else to unstick the focus.
I've done a cursory search of the archives, but haven't found anything
related to this.  

Is there a magic keystroke I'm missing?

Will