Address Book not getting new contacts from Mail

Minor issue but annoying....

When in Mail (desktop app, not icloud) and selecting e-mail contact to "add to address book"...it appears to do so, the address field in the e-mail gets trunkated to just the name of sender...however, if I open up a new blank e-mail, that added name is not in the mail memory...and if I go to the Address Book app it's not there either. Sometime when I do this add, it opens up address book and just provides a blank new contact page...

Any ideas? Maybe a corruption in the mail or address books prefs?...thanks, Erik

BTW - this started around the same time Mobile Me stopped and I switched to LIon...but iCloud seems to work well for me, pushing info between my phone, Macbook, calendar, etc...but as to contacts, it only works once it gets into my address book...and for some reason my Mail app doesn't do this anymore.