Count specific dates in cell range for current month

Hi all
I have failed to build a working formula for 2003, I have a spread sheet and in column E3:E99 I have entered dates (Appointments)-- on a separate summery sheet I would like to see how many appointments I have scheduled for the current month. I am looking to tie the "valid" count criteria to my computer clock (RTC). In other words I only want to only count the appointments I have in the current month when I open the spreadsheet. My current formatted date is MM/DD/YY. I do not want to count any dates in the selected cells unless they are in the current month and year. Or at least the current month. I am in real need of a sanity check.
The closest I have gotten to a working formula is
=SUMPRODUCT(MONTH(E3:E99=MONTH(NOW())) (This is obviously not correct)