Why can't a branch be pushed? The checked out branch is not listed as a choice.

[David Woosley]

A branch was created off of the master and checked out.  Changes were made.  The changes were staged and committed to the local branch.  The Push icon has a "1" hovering over it.  Clicking the push icon lists only two local branches which are different than the checked out branch.  While investigating, I looked at the Delete Branch tab.  My branch is listed as local, but not as remote.  Going to the remote repository, only two branches are listed, but not mine.  Most of the time, branching and pushing work great.  But for reasons that continue to baffle me, other times branching causes a lot of lost time and ulcers.  What am I doing wrong?