ical is stuck in "upgrading" mode, not functioning at all. What can I do?

I'm trying to connect my ical to a Doodle account via icloud. First I had to establish an icloud account. Then I had to access ical which appears on the screen and gets stuck in "upgrading" mode. All menu options are gray, the red X button isn't accessible, can't restart computer, have to go through the force quit.

Either there are no help topics available for this or I'm not asking the right questions because I can't find help. Maybe someone out there has been through this and can share how to make ical work.

Thanks in advance.