traverse the row to get the appended itemid

traverse the row to get the appended itemid

I want to get the rowid so I can do the delete from MySQL after the AJAX.
but from my alert('itemid') I get "rowid is undefined"?
$(document).on('click','.circle',function(){
    var rowid =   $(this).closest('td').attr('itemid');
    alert("the row id"+rowid);
    $(this).closest("tr").remove();   
    return rowid;
});
I don't understand this because the AJAX function works and does append the item.id to the end before the closing</tr>  So I must be traversing the row wrong ?  In other words something is wrong with $(this).closest('td').attr('itemid');  because it is there and just can't find it.
 
Below is from HTML tab in Firebug and it has the itemid appended:

<div id="response">
<table id="table">
<tbody id="tbody">
<tr>
<td>
<td></td>
<td></td>
<td>0000-00-00</td>
<td>
<div class="circle">x</div>itemid=
"609"
</td>
</tr>

--------ajax success-------




success: function(data) {
         var checkbx ='<input type="checkbox" class="checkall" >';
        //var delRow = '<input type="button"  class="btnDelete">';
         var delRow = '<div class="circle">x</div>';
   
         var myTable ='<table id="table"><tbody id="tbody">';
              myTable += '<\/tbody><\/table>';
             myTable = $('#response').append(myTable).find('tbody');
   
        $.each(data, function(idx,item) {
                   var    row =    '<tr><td>'+checkbx +    '</\td><td>'+
                    item.todo +'</\td><td>' +
                    item.name +'</\td><td>' +
                    item.date + '</\td><td>'+
                    delRow +'</\td></\tr>';

   
        //appends row with id parameter for delete AJAX function
        myTable.append(row).find('.circle').last().data('itemid',item.id);   ***********

 });//end  each  


thanks,