[jQuery] Problem with dynamic XML

I have the following code:

var cartXml = $("<data><carttotals><items>33</items></carttotals></
data>");

alert(cartXml.find("items").text());

this will spit out 33 in both safari and firefox

However in IE it does not produce anything

Here is what I have figured out so far:

if I change to the following:

alert($("<div><span><p>33</items></span></p>").find("p").text());

this works in IE, Safari, and firefox

it seems with IE you need to use real html tag names and not ones that
are made up.

Does anyone know how I can fix this?