I have a bunch of li elements that I want to alternate in color using odds and evens, and then highlight based on mouse hover. In order to un-highlight I need to keep track of what the color used to be, odd or even. To do this when I apply the highlight color, I first set an arbitrary attribute to it. Are there any downsides to doing it this way? Is there a better way? Here's the code:

<script type="text/javascript">
var init = function(event){
$("li:odd").css({'background-color' :  '#eeeeee', 'font-weight' : 'bold'});
$("li:even").css('background-color', '#cccccc');  
    //initial colors setup

    $("li").hover(
	function ()   //hover over
	{
		var current = $(this);
		current.attr('old-background', current.css('background-color'));
		current.css('background-color', '#ffee99');

	}
	, function()  //hover out
{
	var current = $(this);
	current.css('background-color', current.attr('old-background'));
})

}
$(document).ready(init);
</script>

So is there a better way to do this?