Faking it

Ok, so I’m working on our new portfolio page, and I’ve got the look pretty much down.
(http://www.reaction-design.com/reaction2005/)

The thing that is bugging me is the menu bar at the bottom. I like how it looks and everything, but I’ve got it set up so there are 2 invisible movieclips above it, one above the other. The invisible mc that is closest to the menu, tell’s the menu to open, and the one that’s farther away tell’s the menu to close. What bugs me, is that when you mouse over the invisible mcs the mouse changes to the hand icon, as if you were clicking on a link, and I think it’s kind of distracting.

Is there anyway I could get rid of the the invisible mcs and do something based on where your mouse was on the page? Like if _ymouse is greater than 500 (the size is 1000 x 600, and the menu is 70px high) then send varibale to menu.

Does any of this make sense?

Thanks in advance.