oops, little typo---got to use `$Q` instead of `$` in my project. wrote an extension method:
jQuery.fn.push = function( selector_or_nodes ) { // Given a selector or a jQuery object, append all of the nodes to the current jQuery object. var nodes = $is_string( selector_or_nodes )? $Q( selector_or_nodes ) : selector_or_nodes; var node_count = nodes.length; for( var i = 0; i < node_count; i++ ) { this[ this.length++ ] = nodes[ i ] }; }; so if that should work, you can now say t.push( $( '.bar' ) ); and, in fact t.push( '.bar' ); while keeping the jQuery object identical.